Maria's Adventures: One Piece: The City of Water
by FourthWallBreaker
Summary: (OC self-Insert) Maria is a curious girl who likes to hang around Dock 1, but she has a bit of a problem: she has no idea who she is or where she came from. Dock 1 makes for a good place to gather possible information, but so far she hasn't had any luck on finding any on herself. Maybe Maria'll have a chance with a certain pirate crew that's coming in for ship repairs...?
1. A Normal Day in Dock 1

**Hi, guys! FourthWallBreaker here with a story that's been bugging me for a while. It's actually out-of-order with the other stories that I'm working on, but no one's going to get any spoilers...yet.**

**I'm going to be separating this story by way of the arcs so that it doesn't end up getting to be too long...I'm already in the middle of writing Thriller Bark, and this thing's gotten to be ****_way _****over 400 pages...**

**By the way, you guys, I don't own anything that happens in this story other than the small changes I'm going to make to the plot...and the characters that I'm dropping into all of this. Whether that will save Portgas D. Ace in the future or not remains to be seen.**

**And now...we begin this new adventure!**

**Chapter 1 - A Normal Day in Dock 1...Not**

The docks were in a commotion again.

It wasn't exactly uncommon, but the noise was often loud enough to attract crowds and cause sea birds to fly off from their nests in order to avoid the inevitable attack from a flying log or a sword released from an attacker's grip. Anyone who was anyone knew that this was because the shipwrights were taking care of someone-usually a pirate-who wouldn't pay for repairs. The medical bills were usually higher than the repairs to the ship, and that was saying something for the stupidity of those involved.

It was the noise of the fight that awoke a figure sleeping with her back against the wall of a nearby building.

"Hmmm?" The figure's head shifted, and a hand reached up and adjusted a red and orange baseball cap as the figure looked over in the direction of the clanging noise, which was starting to die down. "Another fight? What's with these people?"

The figure started to get to her feet, dusting off the sleeves of her orange jacket before moving to the red shirt underneath and her blue jeans. Glancing over in the direction of the docks, she sighed and shook her head. "I was hoping for a better wake-up call than that. At least it didn't interrupt anything important."

The figure scratched the back of her head before stepping out of her sleeping place and into the light. Brown hair and blue eyes sparkled as the sunlight reflected off them, and the figure blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted. "I should probably get out of here before the less friendly shipwrights catch sight of me and try to accuse me of trespassing or something..."

The figure, now revealed to be a teenage girl, quickly moved along the stone pathway and jumped over a low, wooden fence at the end of the path. She came out on the outside of one of the docks and walked over to an ever-growing crowd of people, each one gawking at a different member of the docks with admiration...or something more, depending on whether or not you were a girl gawking at a shipwright's muscles.

"What happened?" the teenager asked, looking over at one of the people standing there.

"Another pirate refused to pay the price for getting their ship fixed up," the man replied, grinning as he turned to look at her. "Well, they paid the price for not paying, all right."

"Oh." The teenager's blue eyes darkened as she frowned. "But, why wouldn't they pay with cash? I mean, they got their ship fixed by the best, didn't they?"

"Pirates are always like that, trying to take things without paying for them," the other replied carelessly. "Everybody knows that."

"Well, I kinda don't..." The girl rubbed the back of her head in slight embarrassment. "I'm still trying to relearn a lot."

The man's eyes widened slightly. "Oh, hey - you're that kid who's always hanging around here. The amnesiac Maria, right?"

The girl nodded. "Yeah, that's me." The now-named blue-eyed teenager let out a sigh. "I just wish my memories would come back already. It's been a week, and I've only got bits and pieces of random stuff."

"Just give it some time, kiddo. You'll probably remember sooner or later." The man grinned. "Maybe there's someone here in the docks who'll recognize you. I mean, people come from all over the world in order to get their ships repaired at the famous Water 7 docks by our shipwrights."

"Maybe. But the only lead I've got is a blue flash and that storm that happened when I got here...and then all the weird stuff that I can hardly remember." Maria let out a sigh. "And everyone we've tried so far just ends up saying they don't know me, much less heard of me."

"Hey, keep your chin up. At least you've remembered some stuff, right?"

Maria paused for a moment, then gave a slight nod. "Right." A slight smile started to spread across her face. "Maybe I'll find someone today who knows me. I'll go and start looking around now." With that, the teenager turned and started running off down the street towards a dock entrance.

"Hey, Maria!"

The girl came skidding to a halt, and she partially turned and looked back upon hearing the voice. Catching sight of a familiar man with large, orange goggles and a blue jacket, Maria turned around completely and gave a grin. "Hi, Paulie. What's up?"

"You weren't sleeping in the docks again, were you?" the blond-haired man asked, smirking around his cigar.

"Uh...um..." Maria rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "What makes you ask that?"

"Well, I haven't seen you all morning, and having you only appear now made me think that's what happened."

Maria gained a nervous expression and sighed, her shoulders sagging. "Sorry...I was really tired after asking around last night, I guess I just fell asleep. That's all."

"You've been saying that for the past two nights, Maria." Paulie gained a serious expression on his face. "Can't you find another place to sleep? You never know who might find you in the docks at night and catch you unawares."

"I can't help but shake the feeling that I'll have an even worse chance of that out in the city," Maria replied, motioning to the path behind her. "That's why I always sleep in the docks. Something else has been bothering me, too, though."

"Oh? And what's that?" Paulie crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the blue-eyed teenager expectantly. "Don't tell me you want to become a shipwright."

"Hmmm..." A frown crossed Maria's face, but then she shook her head. "No, that's not it at all. I just feel lost every time I see you guys working. But...it's like something's telling me I have to move on-get out of the city and, I dunno, explore the world or something. Maybe I'd get my memories back faster that way."

"Well, I doubt that anyone would want to take on an amnesiac kid who doesn't even know if she can be useful on a ship." Paulie sighed hand shook his head. "Tell you what, how about you hang around Dock 1 for the day and watch what's going on? Maybe you'll find something that you can do to earn yourself some Beris and find an actual place to stay."

"You'd let me do that?"

"Anything to keep you out of trouble." He motioned for the teenager to follow him. "Come on. I'm sure you can stay out of trouble for one day."

Maria gave a slight nod, then followed after the shipwright. The two soon reached Dock 1 and jumped over the short fence as the crowd started to slowly disperse.

"You know, you don't have to actually help me," Maria pointed out, frowning as she followed Paulie through the shipyard. She looked around occasionally at all the shipwrights that were running around working on different ships that were being built. "Not very many people around here seem to think that I'm much of a help to anybody at all."

"Well, I happen to like girls who are modest, and you sitting around or wandering around the docks isn't going to help us out too much." Paulie glanced back at the blue-eyed girl, one hand drifting to the cigar in his mouth. He pulled it out and released a puff of smoke before continuing, "Besides, the sooner you get your memories back, the better. If you can help us out and end up running into someone who knows you, then you'll be able to get off our hands sooner rather than later."

Maria's frown deepened a little, and she absentmindedly adjusted her baseball cap. "I can't help but wonder if you've got some hidden motive or something."

Paulie stopped and looked back at the teenager before giving her a grin. "Relax, will ya? I'm just trying to help. And if we do, it'll get you off our backs so we don't have to worry about accidentally taking you out when some disgruntled customers come into town."

Maria blinked in confusion for a moment, and she cocked her head to one side before giving a grin. "All right. Thanks. Maybe I can do something to help you out in return."

"Help me? What would an amnesiac like you be able to do around here?" Paulie gave the teenager a skeptical look as he stuck the cigar back in his mouth.

Maria frowned again. "Well, you told me that I should learn something here, right? What makes you think I won't be able to learn from you?"

The blond shipwright gave a sigh of annoyance and ran a hand through his slicked-back hair. "All right, all right. Come on, I'll show you what you can do." He turned and started through the shipyard again, the brown-haired teenager following close behind.

It wasn't too long before they reached a large log, still covered in bark.

"I think you can start with removing the outer layer of bark," Paulie directed, motioning to the log. "If you need any help getting it off, don't be afraid to shout."

"Do you use the bark?" Maria asked, frowning.

"Don't worry about it for now." Paulie waved her question off. "I'll come back and check in on you later. There's something else that I gotta go do."

Maria's frown turned into a look of blank confusion. "Um...okay? See you later, I guess?" Her blue eyes blinked a couple times as she watched Paulie turn and saunter off, taking another chance to let the smoke puff out of his mouth.

Maria returned her attention to the log and did her best to push her brown hair back around her ears, but some of it still fell down around her face as she looked for a grip underneath the bark. A slight yank brought up only a small sliver of bark-not even enough to reveal the wood underneath.

The blue-eyed girl let out a sigh of annoyance, making a face as she dropped the piece of bark next to her. "Looks like this is going to take me a while..."

**Time Break**

Maria hadn't even managed to clear out a quarter of the bark by the time the Dock 1 doors opened up later that morning. She looked up and turned to look at the opening doors, blinking in confusion while she cocked her head to one side. The amnesiac caught sight of Paulie standing there with a look of annoyance on his face and appearing somewhat ruffled, as well as one of the other shipwrights-the black-haired man with the top hat and the white bird. And then there was another man with blue hair and a striped suit standing there with a women in a short skirt...and three people that didn't look at all like people from town.

The blue-eyed girl dropped the piece of bark that she had just yanked out and turned to give the three newcomers a closer look.

There was a well-tanned, black-haired teenager with a green-brown bandanna wrapped around his head and a long nose...a girl with bright orange hair and a blue tank top with a white skirt...and a black-haired boy with a red button-up vest, blue shorts, sandals, and a straw hat.

Maria frowned slightly. "Those three...I don't know them, but..."

Her vision started to blur a little, and Maria started blinking rapidly, but her vision didn't clear. Instead, it only got worse. About a minute later, her vision had gone black.

Gradually, her vision started to return, but to a different place: out at sea, on some sort of ship that Maria couldn't identify...and it sounded like people were having a party. The loudest voice caused a picture to appear in front of the ship...and it was of the black-haired boy with the straw hat, and he had a large grin on his face that looked like it was overtaking his head.

Maria's vision blurred again, and she found herself standing back in the shipyard, breathing heavily and blinking rapidly.

_What was that?_

Maria couldn't believe what she had just seen... What did a ship and the boy with the straw hat mean? And why did she have to get a vision of that ship and it's partying crew members _now_?

Speaking of...

Maria quickly glanced around, searching for the group that had come in from the front entrance to Dock 1. She soon found them sitting near a pile of logs waiting to be cut...or have the bark sheared off, the teenager wasn't exactly sure. They were missing the long-nosed, deeply-tanned boy in the brown overalls, but the other two newcomers were there, as well as the long, square-nosed young man with the white baseball cap and an orange and blue jacket. It looked like the lot of them were talking about something.

Curious, Maria moved over to them and snuck around behind the pile of logs in order to hear what was going on.

"So, how much money do you think the repairs are going to cost?" the boy with the straw hat asked as Maria crept up to the top of the log pile. She watched as he tapped each of the three black suitcases in front of him as he continued, "We've got plenty of money to spend, and no price is too high for our _Merry_." The black-haired teenager laughed.

_Merry_? Maria cocked her head in slight confusion while the square-nosed man sat down on the lowest level of lumber. _The only reason they'd probably be here is to repair a ship...but what would someone who looks about my age be doing with one? And how much money does he have if he's not worried about the cost?_

If there was one thing Maria knew from hanging around the docks, it was that these shipwrights weren't cheap.

"And while you're at it, why don't you make her stronger, faster, as tough as nails, and of course, decked out with cannons!" The straw hat grinned.

Maria looked down at the white baseball cap, blinking as she took in the man's sitting posture. His head was bent slightly, and it looked like he was weighed down by something. The blue-eyed teen knew that he was one of the foreman of Dock 1 like Paulie, who was standing nearby, but she'd never really bothered to learn his or the others' names for one reason or another-mainly because none of them except for Paulie had come up to her and said hello or anything else.

All the same, something told her that the posture of the unnamed foreman was bad news.

"I'd like pretty engravings or some sort of decoration along the hull," the orange-haired girl spoke up. "Also, could you guys renovate the inside?"

Maria noticed her short skirt and mentally snickered. Paulie must've had a conniption fit when he'd caught sight of _that_. While she didn't know him well, she'd watched him react to women hanging around the entrance looking for shipwrights to fan over, and he was always scolding them for their skirt length.

The brown-haired girl was glad that she was able to get close enough to him as she was, considering that she wore jeans and refused to go out and find skirts like the other girls were wearing.

"Oh, and a big statue, too!" the straw hat added, grinning. "When I say big, I mean _huge_!" He lifted his arms high above his head as though that was proof of its size. "Kay?"

Maria quietly snorted. What good would a statue be on a ship?

The blue-eyed teen noticed the long-nosed foreman moving then, and she shifted down a little to stay more out of sight. She pulled down on the brim of her red and orange baseball cap when a beam of sunlight hit her eyes, and she listened to the conversation for the foremen's reactions.

"Not so fast," the long-nosed foreman stated.

Something in his tone caused the excited looks to disappear from the orange-haired girl's and straw hat's faces, and a frown came over Maria's face.

"That ship of yours...she's gone on some pretty extraordinary journeys, hasn't she?"

Maria blinked. _That foreman can tell? That's pretty cool. I wonder what kind of journeys their ship has been on?_

The orange-haired girl blinked, looking somewhat befuddled. "Uh..."

Straw hat moved forward and raised an arm in the air, his sandaled feet slapping against the stone. "Yeah, you bet! We've done it all! A while back we flew in the sky then fell back down-we climbed a mountain, too."

Maria's eyes widened. _Flew? A ship? Wow...I didn't think that was possible! And climbing a mountain? How does _that_ work?_

"So, you've gotta work hard to fix her up extra good, okay?" Straw hat looked extremely confident as he spoke.

_With all those adventures, I have no doubt that Paulie and the others will be able to take care of your ship._ Maria gave the straw hat a grin, even though he couldn't see it considering how she was positioned. _I wonder what kind of crew he's a part of._

When none of the foremen said anything to the straw hat's statement, a frown came over his face.

"You don't think I'm lying, do you?" he asked.

"That's not the issue," the long-nosed foreman replied. He turned to look at the two teens. "Her battle scars are worse than you think."

The orange-haired girl blinked. "Um...then you're saying that it's going to take a long time for you to fix her?"

Maria shifted a little. _Something tells me there may be more to it than that..._

"No, ma'am," the long-nosed foreman replied. "It's not about the time. It's not about skill, either. I'm saying no one can fix her, not even us."

Maria's blue eyes widened. _What?_ She shifted to look out over the top of the log pile a little bit better, her expression shifting from confusion to concern. It sounded like they had been through a lot with the ship, but...

The two teenagers looked at the long-nosed foreman in shock. Meanwhile, Paulie moved from where he had been standing to sit down on the log pile. Maria pulled her head back a little so that he wouldn't see her there. He'd probably have her head for listening in like this.

Paulie took the cigar out of his mouth and blew smoke out. "So that means the keel is damaged, huh?" He looked over at the long-nosed foreman.

"That's right," the long-nosed foreman replied grimly. "It looks like it's taken a real wallop."

Maria blinked for a moment, then remembered what the straw hat had said.

_"We flew up in the sky then fell back down..."_

When they fell back down to the sea, did they do some major damage?

The orange-haired girl took a step forward. "No way! We...we've gone everywhere without any problems until now!"

_It makes me wish that I was with you to experience them...and maybe have _some_ memories._ Maria let out a sigh of tired annoyance.

"In theory, even if we did everything we could, the probability of your ship lasting until the next island...is zero." The long-nosed foreman sounded grim and serious. Maria was sure he looked grim, too, but she wasn't about to look down in order to find out.

All she had to do was look at the grim look on the straw hat's face...and she understood. This ship meant a lot to them. Hearing that it couldn't be fixed...it probably meant even more.

Like losing a good friend...or worse.

**Yes, I'm starting the story at this point. I've noticed that most people start it earlier than this, but this point was one that actually worked pretty well for me and what I was planning for Maria. I hope this chapter works as a good introduction for her.**

**I've got school starting soon, so I probably won't be posting another chapter for a while. I'm definitely not giving up on this thing, though - not when I'm plotting just what my characters are going to be doing in the New World. ;)**


	2. No Repairs?

**Hi, guys! I'm back with another for this thing.**

**Thanks for the Favorites, terfa and Simplewriting!**

**Remember - I don't own anything or anybody except for Maria...who may or may not remember that at this point. We'll have to see. ;)**

**Chapter 2 - No Repairs?**

_"In theory, even if we did everything we could, the probability of your ship lasting until the next island...is zero."_

"What? You can't fix the _Going Merry_?" Straw hat frowned. "Why not? I thought that all of you were supposed to be awesome shipwrights!"

_They are,_ Maria thought, her eyebrows knitting together in a confused frown. The amnesiac bit her lower lip a little as her blue eyes remained glued to the black-haired teenager. _But something tells me a "broken keel"-whatever that is-is bad news._

"Don't worry about the money-we've got plenty," straw hat added, patting one of the black suitcases sitting upright in front of him.

"It's not about the money, son," the long-nosed foreman replied, getting the straw hat and the orange-haired girl to look over at him. Maria shifted her position behind the top of the log pile so that she could look more directly at the foreman.

"No matter how much you pay, that ship will never be restored to how she used to be," the foreman added. "To be honest, I'm impressed that you managed to get that old girl this far, considering the condition that she's currently in."

Straw hat's lower lip moved up as his face shifted. Maria wondered for a moment if he was about to cry upon hearing the news. His face was making her want to cry herself.

"What's that supposed to mean?" the orange-haired girl demanded. "What exactly is going on with the _Merry_?"

It wasn't the long-nosed foreman that answered her question-it was Paulie instead.

"Do you know what the keel is, immoral girl?" Paulie asked gruffly.

Maria bit her lower lip to keep herself from laughing.

"Immor-" the orange-haired teen stopped herself. "You mean that thing at the bottom of the boat?"

"Yeah. It's the most important piece of lumber on a ship. It crosses from stem to stern and provides support. When you build a ship, you start by placing the keel. Then you set the wood for the stem, the stern, and the frame, frame brackets and deck pieces. All the pieces are carefully assembled together, with the keel serving as the core. It's the very backbone, framework, and life of every ship ever constructed, and when it's severely damaged, then that's the end of it."

Maria inhaled a breath of air through her nose. She started to see now what their point was.

"You can't just replace it with a new one-that would be the same as building a new ship from scratch. And that's the reason that we, or anyone, won't be able to fix her. Your ship's just a bundle of wood stuck together, awaiting her end."

_You don't have to be so harsh about it,_ Maria thought, frowning at the blond shipwright.

"Hey, you!" the orange-haired girl looked angry, now. "Don't say such horrible things!"

"Horrible or not, it's the truth," Paulie replied calmly. He leaned back against the log pile and shut his eyes.

The orange-haired girl looked strangely shell-shocked at the statement.

"Okay, fine, then!" straw hat spoke up suddenly. "Just rebuild her from ground up, like you said before! Build another _Going Merry_!"

The white bird on the black-haired man's shoulder spoke up suddenly, cooing before speaking. "Sorry, not possible."

"Why not?" straw hat responded, scowling.

_Well, yeah, why not?_ Maria looked over at the black-haired man with the black top hat with a curious expression. _If I'm going to end up hanging around here doing stuff for Paulie, I may as well learn_ something _today._

"We could build you a very similar ship," the bird continued, "but no one can build you one that's exactly the same."

_Huh?_

"Nowhere are there two completely identical ships-it simply can't be done!"

"What do you mean?" the orange-haired girl asked. "Why?"

"Tell me, are there two trees in the world that grow exactly the same way?" the bird asked.

The girl's brown eyes widened.

"A sailing ship is mostly built out of lumber, so the shape and overall size of the ship is determined by the type of wood used. That's why an exact duplicate can't be built by us or anyone else, even if we use the same blueprints. If we made a ship like that with those specifications, the ones who would know the difference and feel that it's a completely different ship would be all of you guys!" The bird pointed a wing at the boy and the girl.

Maria cocked her head to one side, blinking as she took the bird's speech in. _I guess that makes sense...but it still feels odd to me, like I shouldn't really be here in order to learn all this stuff. Like...I'm not meant to be a shipwright or something._

"No way."

Maria looked up again, and saw that the orange-haired girl was clenching her fists and glaring at the foremen.

"So you're saying that it's absolutely impossible for us to continue sailing on the _Going Merry_?" the teenager demanded.

"Unfortunately, yes," the long-nosed foreman replied. "You can either wait around for her to sink...or dismantle her immediately."

"Well, your ship is on her last legs."

Maria shifted her gaze to the fancy-looking blue-haired man standing next to the official-looking woman...who also had a short skirt that probably cause Paulie to have another conniption fit.

"Why don't you look at this as an opportunity?" the man continued. "You happen to be in the best place to buy a new ship. You have money, right? I understand that your previous ship was a carabell. Sailing on an old ship like that on the Grand Line is difficult to being with."

"No way. We're not getting a new ship."

Maria turned her attention to the straw hat again, and took note that his eyes were shaded from the sun in such a way that she couldn't see his expression.

"Luffy..." the orange-haired girl muttered.

_Luffy? Is that the straw hat's name?_

"Merry is...The _Going Merry_ is the ship of the Straw Hat Pirates!" Luffy shifted his head so that he was glaring directly at each of the foremen and the others present. "If she's repaired, then she can still sail! She'll be fine, you'll see-and she brought us here today, didn't she?! And you tell us out of nowhere that she can't sail anymore?! I can't believe that! I won't!"

"Pirates?" Maria repeated in a soft whisper, blinking in shock. _These_ two were pirates? And the foremen were letting them in to take care of their repairs? Maybe it was because of all the cash they have...

Then again...it felt like these two were different from the others that had come in recently and caused the ruckus. Maria knew what pirates were-one of the first few questions that had been asked of her when she had woken up was _"Was your ship attacked by pirates?"_

That's how they had discovered that she had amnesia.

"You guys are just saying that because you don't know her! You have no idea how strong she is!" Luffy has his eyes clenched tightly now, like he didn't want to look at the foremen's faces and believe the ugly truth that had been placed in front of him.

"Then your plan is to kept sailing her until she sinks?" the blue-haired man asked. Maria noticed with surprise that he was petting a white mouse that was stuck in his pocket, and she wondered what it was doing there...

The orange-haired girl turned to look at the blue-haired man and gave him a look of shock.

"I'm shocked."

Luffy turned his head to look at the man, as well.

"So, this is the decision ship's captain?" the blue-haired man asked somewhat coldly.

Maria stiffened a little as she looked over at the boy with the straw hat. _Luffy...he's the captain of the ship?_ She looked over at the orange-haired girl. _Then who's she?_

Luffy clenched his fists and bowed his head. Maria couldn't help but wonder if he was trembling.

"This discussion is over for now," the blue-haired man stated, bowing his own head. "Think about it. If you decide to buy a ship, let me know. My people can help. If you're able to spend three hundred million, we can build a state-of-the-art ship for you."

Maria felt like her heart had nearly stopped. _Three hundred million?!_

Because of her amnesia, she didn't know much about the currency that the world used, but just the number alone...

_Sheesh, what did these pirates do, raid a government safe or something?_

"Kalifa?" the blue-haired man turned to look at the woman next to him, and she pulled something out of the blue folder that she was carrying.

"Here, if you'd look this over, please," she stated. "It's a catalog of our new and our used models. Use it as a price reference."

"Hey, Iceberg!"

Maria shifted her gaze, and she caught sight of a muscular man with a tattoo on his chest and a spike of hair sticking out of his head coming towards them.

The blue-haired man turned to look over at the newcomer.

"There's someone at front gate who wants to see you," the man added. Maria quickly recognized him as one of the foreman of Dock 1.

Iceberg looked over at Kalifa, who looked down at her open blue folder.

"There doesn't seen to be anyone on your appointment schedule today," the woman stated.

"It looks like those World Government officials again," the newly arrived foreman added. "Should I tell them you're unavailable?"

"Well...yes, please. Say that I'm gone. By the way, Lulu, you've got quite a case of bed head."

Maria blinked in slight confusion. _Lulu? That sounds like a girl's name or something. And...World Government? Something about that sounds like bad news..._

"Oops. How embarrassing. My apologies." Lulu lifted a hand and pushed down on the spike that was sticking up out of his head...only for the spike of hair to come out on the other side of his head. "Anyway, I'll ask them to leave."

"Uh...thanks. I appreciate it."

Maria held back a snicker when she saw how the hair shifted. It seemed that Lulu was always having a problem with his hair.

"Hold it right there, Iceberg."

Maria shifted a little so that she could see the new voice and still keep out of sight. She felt the cloth that was covering the logs shift underneath her, yanking on the cloth on the other side of the pile. She prayed that nobody noticed it tighten, and instead concentrated on the three men in black suits approaching them.

There was a chuckle from the shortest of the three men. "Looks like you're here, after all."

"Hey, you two need to hide," Paulie stated to Luffy and the girl. He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the wood pile he was sitting on. "Government officials are here."

"What?" the orange-haired girl asked, befuddled. "Uh...okay." She and Luffy picked up the black suitcases that were in front of them, then carried them around to the side of the woodpile, far enough away from Maria that they wouldn't end up noticing her.

"And you."

Maria stiffened when she heard Paulie's voice.

"Get down from up there, you stupid girl. You're definitely going to get spotted up there."

"Oh! Uh...right."

Maria slid down to the ground and sat with her back against the logs. "Something tells me I'm in a lot of trouble."

"Well, hello again, Corgi," Iceberg stated. "As you can see, I'm not here today."

"Yes, you are. Come now, I came all the way here by Sea Train. Don't turn me away, it's impolite."

There was a strange pause for a moment, and then Corgi spoke up again.

"For some reason, I detect the scent of pirates." The man let out a short laugh. "Whatever. In any case, I want to talk to you."

"And I don't like you," Iceberg replied. "Go away."

Something in his voice made Maria want to laugh.

"Are you a child?"

"Nu-uh, I'm totally an adult."

_That_ made Maria snort. She couldn't see the looks on their faces, but she knew for a fact that anyone who evaded these government-y people like _that_ was pretty cool in her book.

"Then start acting like one," Corgi growled. "There's something of special importance that I need to discuss with you. I would appreciate it if you would hear me out."

There was a pause for a moment, and then Corgi said something else.

"Come. Let's talk this over in private."

Maria listened as footsteps resounded on the ground, then she scrambled back up to the top of the woodpile. She caught sight of Luffy's and the orange-haired girl's heads move in order to follow her movements, but they said nothing.

"Those government guys are so damn persistent," Paulie growled around his cigar. "What the hell do they want with Iceberg, anyway?"

The white bird on one of the other foremen's shoulders let out a coo. "Look, it has nothing with us. Probably political stuff."

"Should I beat them up?" Lulu asked, rubbing his head.

"I wouldn't," the long-nosed foreman replied. "I mean, they're government guys, after all."

Paulie gave a nod, then reached up and grabbed a hold of Maria's orange jacket sleeve, catching the teen by surprise. "But as for you, if you don't go back and keep doing what I told you to do, there's going to be hell to pay."

"Eep!" Maria yelped in surprise as she was suddenly dragged down the log pile and landed on the ground, her face in the dirt.

"Paulie, what's this girl doing here?" square-nose asked, frowning.

"The kid wanted something to do, so I gave her something to do." Paulie shrugged as Maria started to get to her feet, spitting out dirt. "It's better than her bothering the customers or sleeping in the docks when we don't know she's there."

"You've been sleeping here?"

"Like I have anywhere else to go..." Maria dusted off her jacket sleeves, then attacked her pants. "I mean, I don't know anybody here in the city except for Paulie, and nobody's come up and said that they recognize me..."

"Hold on." The square-nosed foreman frowned. "Are you saying that you're that girl with amnesia that we were told about?"

"Uh...heh heh." Maria grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of her head. "Maybe?"

Before anyone could say anything else, there came a loud, girlish scream from behind the woodpile. It was in unison with a boy's scream - Luffy and the orange-haired girl, maybe?

Paulie let out a growl of annoyance and quickly moved off the log pile in order to see what was going on. "Idiots! What the hell are you-" He cut himself short and pointed at something that Maria couldn't see. "Hey, lady, if you sit like that everyone can see your-"

"Don't tell me...there's no way..."

Maria blinked in confusion, then looked around the woodpile herself in order to see what was going on.

The orange-haired girl and Luffy were staring at two open suitcases and were moving nervously towards them. It was obvious that they didn't like what was there and were nervous about looking again.

"I don't wanna look..." Luffy said, his voice wavering as he and the girl peered over into the open suitcases...

...which Maria saw were completely empty and looked like they had been patched up a few times on the inside.

_Well, there goes some of _that_ cash..._

"Two hundred million!" Luffy yelled.

"Gone! It's really gone!" the orange-haired girl wailed. She looked down at the suitcases again. "Wait-look at these bags! They aren't even ours!"

The two pirate teenagers started wailing again.

The man with the top hat and the bird stepped around the wood pile in order to look at the two wailing sources of the screams.

"Hey hey!" the bird exclaimed. "Keep it down. What's wrong?"

"Our money...our money is gone," Luffy moaned.

"Vanished...gone...disappeared," the orange-haired girl added.

"What?" Paulie sounded-and looked-like he couldn't believe his ears.

"How is that even possible?" Maria muttered, frowning. "Money doesn't just disappear like that."

"Paulie, was it you again?" the bird asked, pointing a wing at the blond shipwright.

"Huh? No!"

"Honest?"

"Why would I lie?"

"You mean it?"

"Yes, I mean it!"

Maria could tell that Paulie and the bird were starting to get irritated, but she figured she wouldn't be able to do anything about it, so she just sighed and shook her head. "Well, isn't this just great-sounds like there are thieves hanging around here somewhere."

"Hey, Kaku, were you hanging around the Franky Family today?"

Maria's blue eyes blinked in confusion, and she looked back at Lulu. "Franky Family?"

The square-nosed foreman looked up at Lulu. "The Franky Family? I haven't been anywhere near them today."

"Well, that's funny, because I'm sure that I saw your long nose."

"Whoa whoa, hang on a sec!" The orange-haired girl scrambled out from behind the wood pile, Luffy following after her.

"That's Usopp!" Luffy exclaimed, sounding worried.

"You saw him with the Franky Family?" the orange-haired girl asked, alarmed.

"Well, maybe you could say he was with them, or you could say that he was being dragged away." Lulu pushed down on a spike that had come out of his head...and it came out in his mustache.

"That's called kidnapping!" The orange-haired girl turned to look at Luffy. "Luffy, we've got to find him."

As if she had spoken the magic words, Luffy suddenly turned and took off into the docks, one hand sitting on top of his head in order to keep his straw hat in place. The black-haired teenager left quite the cloud of dust behind him.

Maria's eyes widened in surprise. "Whoa, he's fast!"

"Hey, hold on! Where are you going to look?!" the orange-haired girl called after the pirate.

"Wait for me, Usopp! Wait for me, money! I'm coming!" Luffy dashed out of the Dock 1 gate without looking back.

The orange-haired girl let out a sigh, then turned to look at Paulie and Maria. "Hey, where can I find the Franky Family's hideout?"

"It's not really a hideout," Paulie replied. "It's more like a workshop. From where your ship is docked, it's way up the seashore to the northeast. It's off by itself-you can't miss it. It's called the Franky House."

The orange-haired girl gave a nod in thanks, then turned and ran off.

"I'm going to go help them." Maria started to run forward, but Paulie grabbed her by the collar of her shirt, pulling her back.

"Oh no, you don't," the blond shipwright growled. "You're staying here and getting that job of yours done like I asked you to."

"But they need help!" Maria turned to glare up at Paulie and motioned towards the open gate. "Those Franky Family people could have hurt their friend really badly, and I want to be able to help them make sure he's all right."

"You're not a nurse, kid," Paulie growled in reply. He placed his hands on Maria's shoulders. "Listen, this is their fight to get into, not yours. I know you haven't really done much with the rest of the people of Water 7, but here's the main thing: the Franky Family go after pirates and make sure to steal their gold and whatever else they have on them, then go after them for their bounties. If they find out that you're going to help the Strawhats, then you're going to be mistaken for a pirate, too."

Maria shook the shipwright's hands off. "That doesn't give them the right to steal something that would have gone into the city eventually-that's how much they were willing to put in for their ship. They're not like the other pirates that were here earlier!"

The white bird on the unnamed foreman's shoulder cooed. "That may be, but that doesn't mean we can really get involved. The Franky Family would probably kill you if you got into a fight with them, considering that you probably don't know or remember how to fight."

"But that doesn't mean that I have to stand by!" Maria let out a growl and clenched her fists. "There's something in me that's screaming at me to go and help them, and I want to!" She turned and started towards the gate again, but Kaku quickly moved to stand in her way.

"Maria, even if you were able to help them, you don't know how much of a help you would be," the square-nosed foreman stated. "Go and do what Paulie asked you to do, and trust that the pirates will be able to find their friend in time."

Maria scowled, her blue eyes darkening. "All right. Fine." She turned and stomped off towards her work station, leaving the foremen to stand there watching her go.

"Kid's got spirit," Lulu noted.

"Yes, but I doubt she'll be able to put it to good use in the shipyards," Kaku intoned. "Keep an eye on her, Paulie. She's under your jurisdiction now-you know that."

The blond shipwright nodded. "Yup. Let's just hope that amnesia of hers doesn't cause her to get into any trouble. I mean, the kid doesn't remember _anything_ about how our world works. She's going to pay for that big time someday if we don't find someone who might be able to get her memories back, and soon."

**Well, that was our first run-in with one rubbery pirate. Be assured that it will not be the last, either. Maria is a very curious soul at this point, so... *snickers***


	3. The Doctor and the Long Nose

**Hi, guys! Back again with another chapter!**

**Thanks to Taichi14, rockobrocko, chaosrin for the Favs and Follows!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anybody except for Maria, our poor, resident amnesiac. I wouldn't know what to do with One Piece if I did own it!**

**Chapter 3 - The Doctor and the Long Nose**

It was pretty late in that afternoon by the time Paulie finally let Maria stop shaving the bark off of tree logs.

"Not bad for your first day," the blond shipwright noted, looking at the five logs and piles of bark next to each. "I didn't even think you'd get two done." He glanced sidelong at Maria, who had her arms crossed over her chest in an attempt to keep them tiredly supported. As it was, the blue-eyed teen was only breathing heavily, and didn't exactly look dead on her feet. Maria didn't even look like she was _sweating_.

"It wasn't so bad, I guess," Maria commented, smiling up at the shipwright. "But it doesn't exactly feel like something I want to do for the rest of my life." The smile faded slightly at the corners of her mouth.

"Well, that'd probably be your memory talking." Paulie dug his hands into the pockets of his dark blue pants, then paused. His eyes widened. "Oh, shoot."

Maria frowned. "What is it?"

"I don't have any Beris to pay ya with. I must've spent it all already."

"More like gambled it," the blue-eyed amnesiac grumbled under her breath.

Paulie shot Maria a dark look, and she scowled back at him, as if to say, "Well, it's true."

The shipwright snorted and rolled his eyes. "I'll get the money to you later, I promise. For now, though, you're just gonna have to go Beri-less."

Maria gave a dejected sigh. "All right. I've kind of been living like that for the past week, anyway. I was really looking forward to having an actual bed, though..."

"Well, tough luck." Paulie took the cigar out of his mouth and released a good puff of smoke. "By the way, Kaku and the others set up a patrol system for the night shift of shipwrights. You'd better find some other place to sleep tonight."

The brown-haired teen turned sharply to look at Paulie in shock. "What?! But-"

"No buts, kid. You're going to have to find somewhere else to be. If you don't want to sleep in the alleys, find a roof instead."

Maria blinked in confusion. "A roof? How do you expect me to get on a roof?"

"I dunno. Jump?" Paulie grinned mischievously around his cigar, but the grin soon faded into a serious expression. "You'd better get going while there's still daylight, Maria. You'll have an easier time finding a place to sleep now rather than after the sun sets."

Maria let out a sigh, then dropped her arms to her sides. "All right, all right. I'll get going." The amnesiac turned towards the Dock 1 entrance and pulled her red and orange baseball cap down a little further to shield her eyes from the afternoon sun, which was getting pretty close to the horizon. As she walked, she also grabbed the zipper of her orange jacket and zipped up the article of clothing about halfway, leaving the red shirt underneath still visible.

Maria stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans while she marched out the Dock 1 entrance and down along the path that led deeper into Water 7, rather than out into the water. There were a few buildings up by the docks, but most of the people had gone out to be social. This was one of the first things that the amnesiac had learned when she had been released from the medical ward and led to the docks not long after the doctors had discovered her mental condition.

The doctors had intended for Maria to make this a regular trip while being kept partially sedated with pills that were intended to help, but the teen had simply found the pills to be a nuisance rather than a good way to nap. The brown-haired girl had slipped away as soon as the chance was given right on the first day of the intended route, and the shipwrights had kept the doctors from looking for her. Now, Maria was free and on her own.

A sour look crossed Maria's face when she realized that staying with the doctors might have also meant free room and board. And food - one mustn't forget food. It unnerved Maria enough that she wasn't hungry _at all,_ and hadn't been since she had started sleeping in the docks on her own.

"Don't think about that now," Maria scolded herself aloud. "I have to find a safe place to sleep without getting jumped-and without the stupid pills that got flushed out of my system fifteen minutes later."

The teen soon arrived at a dead end - well, a dead end for the sidewalk, at least. Water 7 was filled with more canals than actual roads - considering that it was named the City of _Water_ by the rest of the world - so it was more difficult to walk through the city than it was to take a boat.

Or swim.

Maria looked back and forth along the intersection of water, checking for passing yagaras - small, friendly horse monsters that carried boat-like saddles for people on their backs - before diving into the water and swimming over to another pathway. The amnesiac climbed up with practiced ease, then took her hat off and squeezed to remove as much water as she could before putting it back on and continuing forward.

Maria smiled knowingly as she walked down the street, her clothes drying a little in the sea breeze that blew through the city. No one thought that an amnesiac would be able to discover - or rather, _rediscover_ - how to swim mere hours after waking up in the aftermath of a storm. Especially when she had been _in_ it.

It didn't take Maria took long before she reached the water elevator that took people and yagaras down to the shopping district and backstreets of Water 7. Since the medical ward of the city had been place _extremely_ close to the docks (simply for the sake of accidents or attacks on unruly customers), Maria had never actually managed to make it this far into the city.

"OK...it's now or never." Maria swung her arms back and forth a few times, then dove into the canal and swam for the water elevator, keeping her head low in order to avoid anyone's line of sight and raise questions. She even went under and came back up a few times as she passed into the stone tower that held the elevator.

"Aren't you going to tire yourself our, swimming like that all over the place?"

Maria stiffened upon hearing the young, boyish voice, then looked up to her right. Sitting in a boat on a green yagara was a large, shirtless, muscular man with a pink top hat with a large white "X" on the front. He clearly looked like he had been in the sun for quite some time, but he also looked somewhat odd: it looked like there was fur on his shoulders, and the man's blue nose drew Maria's attention before anything else.

Maria blinked, slightly confused by the man's appearance. "Uh...I actually haven't been able to swim all that much ever since I got here, and I don't have a yagara to get around."

The elevator doors closed behind them, and the water started to descend, Maria kept treading water, but she could feel the water level moving and noticed that her kicks were starting to slow. It felt almost as if her limbs were made of iron.

"I could give you a ride," the boyish voice spoke again. Maria looked up at the blue-nosed man as he added, "I'm looking for someone, but I don't know where he is. He kinda ran off before I could treat his injuries again."

Maria frowned. "You're a doctor?" Her tone was suddenly suspicious. The only doctors she knew of were the ones who had tried to solve her memory problem with pills.

"I am. I'm a...a ship crew's doctor."

Maria took note of the hesitation, but really didn't pay it any attention. Instead, she relaxed slightly. "Then this person you're looking for - is he a part of your crew?"

The innocent question actually hit the man pretty hard, and his expression became almost uncertain. "Well...he was. But a doctor has to take care of any injured patient, no matter what, and he was hurt pretty badly, so..."

"Oh." Maria's face fell. The fact alone that someone left the crew seemed to hit the man pretty hard. Maybe she shouldn't bother him...

A large, brown hand came in front of Maria's face, and she turned her blue eyes to look up at the muscular doctor in confusion.

"Come on," the man stated with a gently smile. "I'm not about to let someone faint from exhaustion, either."

Maria blinked for a moment, then gave a smile of her own and nodded. Then she reached up and grabbed the man's arm with both hands, and the amnesiac found herself lifted into the yagara boat with a slight grunt from the muscular doctor.

"You're actually heavier than I expected," the man noted, glancing back while Maria relaxed into the open seat of the yagara boat.

"And you're pretty strong," Maria noted, surprised herself. "I didn't think that a doctor could be so muscular. What kind of crew are you on?"

The doctor blinked, then turned his head when the elevator doors opened. Maria noticed hat the sky had already started to change colors - she had left the docks when the sky was still a clear blue. Had she really been walking and swimming long enough for the sun to start setting without her notice?

"My crew's...different," the doctor stated, catching Maria's attention. "We're small, and...and we get into a lot of trouble, so everybody's got to be able to fight in some way."

"Really? You must be on a lot of people's bad sides, then." Maria looked up and down the canal with no small amount of awe; there were certainly a lot of shops around here!

Noticing the doctor stiffen up, Maria turned her attention to the yagara's driver and added quickly, "S-sorry if I seem heartless. I got washed up here last week without my memories, so I'm kind of...relearning things."

The doctor looked back, eyes wide in surprise. "You lost your memory?" he asked.

Now Maria was starting to feel cautious again. "They're kind of coming back every night or so, but I haven't been able to remember where I came from or why I was even near Water 7 in the first place. Doctors have tried to cure me, but none of the stuff really helped. The shipwrights have been keeping them off my back the past few days, and I can say that I've gotten more memories back without them than with them."

For a few moments, neither one of the two said anything, the doctor remaining hunched over in his seat with the yagara's reins in his hands. Maria simply kept her eyes trained on his back in case he did anything.

"Memories aren't something that can come back by force," the doctor finally noted, glancing back at Maria. "You were right in leaving them."

"I-wait, you're not going to try to jog my memory with anything?"

The man shook his head. "There really isn't anything I can do, especially after having experienced temporary amnesia myself."

Maria's blue eyes widened. "You had amnesia?"

"Some time ago, yes-the entire crew, in fact. Luckily, our captain made sure that we got our memories back." The doctor chuckled. "He's pretty awesome."

Maria gave a ghost of a smile. "Sounds like it. You must be pretty lucky to have a captain like him."

The doctor seemed like he was about to respond, but then he gain a weird look on his face while his blue nose twitched. Then his head turned so sharply that Maria thought his pink top hat would have come off and dropped into the canal.

The muscular man let out a gasp, looking somewhere to his right. "There he is!"

Maria blinked in confusion, then started to look up and down the right side of the canal. "There who is?"

"My frie-I mean, my patient." The doctor brought the green yagara to a wooden post on the right side of the canal, then jumped out and tied the sea animal to the post before grabbing a small, blue backpack from where he had been sitting a minute ago. "C-could you wait there for a little bit? I'll probably be a while, but -"

"Sure, no problem." Maria propped her feet up on the front seat of the boat and leaned against the back of her own chair, her hands behind her head. "I'll guard your yagara until you get back." She closed her eyes, then opened one blue orb and gave a slight smile.

"Thanks!"

The large man turned and ran off, backpack gripped in one large hand as the teen closed her eye again. Maria found it strange that such a large doctor would carry around such a small bag of medical materials, but decided to pay it no mind. After all, she knew nothing about medicine...at least, that she could _remember_.

While Maria's eyes remained closed, the blackness of her vision seemed to being to wary and fold in on itself. Colors began to fade in as the blackness faded out, turning into a landscape of strangely-shaped buildings that looked like the heads of strange creatures.

**Memory Break**

_A yellow, mouse-like creature with a thunderbolt-shaped tail was standing next to Maria, who only came up to the mouse's shoulder._

_"This is Treasure Town," the yellow mouse explained in boyish tones. "This place is where Exploration teams of all kinds-"_

**Memory Break**

The vision was interrupted by the sound of someone sniffling.

Annoyed at having the strange scene cut short, Maria opened one eye, then the other when she saw who was approaching.

The doctor had come back to the yagara, and it looked like there were tears attempting to leak out of his eyes. Maria found herself somewhat grossed out, as well, seeing as his nose was starting to run along with his eyes.

"What happened?" Maria asked, removing her feet from the back of the front seat and maneuvering herself into a more upright position.

"He...he didn't let me treat him." The doctor sniffled. "And he's still badly hurt from..." He trailed off uncertainly, but Maria didn't pay it any heed-after all, it wasn't her business how the guy got hurt.

All the same, the teen did feel her heart wrench, and she gave a frown. Something was...flickering at the corner of her mind. A flash of red and white...a gruff tone of voice and an equally grumpy bedside manner...

The thought was gone in an instant, and Maria decided that she needed to say something.

"Maybe you're not gruff enough with your bedside manner," the blue-eyed teen suggested. "Maybe you should...I dunno, hit him over the head with something to get your point across."

The muscular man blinked for a second, probably surprised that Maria would suggest such a thing. "Hit him over the head..." A frown came over his face, and he shook his head. "I couldn't do that. While it would provide good anesthesia, it wouldn't make for a good bedside manner, and I don't want to be known for that."

Again, Maria saw a flash of red and white, but it was gone before she could identify what it was.

"Now that that's taken care of...where was it that you were headed?"

The blue-eyed teen was jolted out of her thoughts by the doctor's boyish voice. She looked up at him with some confusion, then shook here head to clear it of whatever thoughts remained of the red and white flash.

"Since I'm probably from...out of town somewhere, I don't exactly have a permanent place to stay," Maria explained. "I was planning on finding my way up to a rooftop and sleeping there. It'd be better than some alleyway, anyway, and I don't have the money for a hotel room somewhere."

"You could come back to my crew's ship. I'm sure my captain wouldn't mind."

Maria shook her head again, then stood up and got out of the yagara. "I wouldn't want to trouble you guys. Besides, I like this city, and I like sleeping out under the stars. Nobody's probably going to go up there at night, so I should be all right."

The doctor looked hesitant at the idea of letting Maria go and wander off on her own, but he gave a reluctant nod. "If you say so. If you need anything, though, don't be afraid to come and find us. My crew's ship is out by the shipwright docks, so it shouldn't be too hard to find, as it's the only one out there."

"I'll keep that in mind. Thanks." Maria gave the muscular doctor a smile and a nod, then turned and walked up the street, looking up at the residential buildings and hotels as she went. It seemed that there weren't all that many people out at this time of evening, leaving the sunset to be admired by practically no one. Not that Maria minded - after spending the past few days handing around the docks, the semblance of silence was a good change of pace.

"Now, how to get up on those rooftops..."

Maria scanned the sides of the buildings. Each one of them was made of stone, washed smooth from who knew how many waves crashing into them during storms. This meant that there were no handholds or footholds for anyone who wanted to climb up.

_If I get inside and climb one of the buildings' stairs, then I could reach the roof,_ Maria decided. _But how to get in without anyone noticing..._

It was right then that Maria caught sight of someone who looked rather interesting: a teenage boy with a mass of black, curly hair underneath what looked like a bandanna of some sort...brown overalls...and bandages that seemed to go from his neck to some undisclosed location on his body. The blue-eyed amnesiac suspected that the bandages went all the way to his toes. He seemed to be walking well enough, but occasionally - like now, at the base of the stairs of a hotel - he would stop and grimace a little in pain before continuing forward.

Maria cocked her head slightly, blinking in confusion. _Is this the patient that one guy was talking about? He looks like he's hurt pretty badly..._

Maria watched him walk - or rather, limp - up the stairs and into the hotel. As he walked inside, an idea formed at the back of Maria's mind and brought itself forward.

Maria frowned quietly to herself, then sighed as her shoulders sagged. "Well, it's either an actual room with a roof over my head, or sneaking past and getting up on the roof of this place..." She bit gently down on her tongue as she thought, frowning. After a few moments, the blue-eyed teen nodded to herself, then started confidently up the stairs and into the lobby of the hotel.

The amnesiac stepped in just as the bandaged teen was moving away from the check-in counter. Maria found herself somewhat amazed that she hadn't caught sight of his long, bandaged nose sooner.

"Now or never..." Maria clenched her fists as though to steel herself, then walked over to the bandaged teen, taking in a breath in order to get the other's attention...and to also try to calm her nerves for a few seconds.

"Umm...excuse me?"

The tanned boy turned his head and looked over at Maria. He looked angry and determined, like there was something he had to do and he did not want to be disturbed by anyone.

"What is it?" the boy asked, looking Maria over. The angry expression morphed into one that looked more like suspicion and caution - something Maria was expecting a least a little bit of from the stranger.

"Um...I've been sleeping at the docks for the past few days, but one of the foremen came over and told me that I had to find another place to sleep, or else I'm going to end up getting caught, and who knows what's going to happen after that."

"And you expect me to do something about it?"

"Just let me sleep on your floor tonight, and I'll find another place tomorrow. That's all I ask. Please." Maria's eyebrows scrunched together in a look of concerned expectancy. She hoped that the boy would take some semblance of pity and let her stick around somewhere with a roof over her head - otherwise, she'd be sleeping out in an alley at this point, and who knows what would happen to her then.

The teenager blinked for a moment, still scowling, but then sighed and shook his head. "All right, fine. Come on, it's this way." He turned and started up the stairs of the hotel. Maria quickly moved to follow behind him, but not so close that she was nearly running him over.

After climbing up a few flights, Maria decided to try and break the suppressing ice of silence.

"My name's Maria," she stated. "I've been in Water 7 for only a week."

The teenager glanced back at the girl and muttered something that Maria almost didn't catch.

"Usopp? That's a cool name." Maria smiled slightly. "I've been hearing a lot of cool names like that around here for the past few days."

Usopp blinked for a moment, then turned his head to look at the stairs and shook his head while muttering something else. He sounded grumpy, so Maria didn't press him. It was like the shipwrights at the docks-you didn't want to press them so far that they decided to hit you like they did the ungrateful pirates.

It wasn't too long before they reached a hotel room, and Usopp led Maria inside and slammed the door behind him.

"Make yourself comfortable, I guess," Usopp stated, motioning to the room. "Just don't try to disturb me, all right?" He sat down on the bed and started digging things out of the orangish bag that was hanging over one shoulder.

"Yeah, sure." Maria moved over to a corner of the room and sat down in it, crossing her legs and folding her arms across her chest as she made herself as comfortable as she could. "Besides Paulie and that strange doctor guy, you're probably the most helpful person I've come across after I woke up with amnesia."

Usopp looked up with surprise as he stated to pull strangely spiraled shells from his bag. "Amnesia?" A strange look came over his face. "What do you last remember?"

"A blue flash and getting tossed around like I was in a storm. After that, I woke up with a doctor standing over me asking if there was anyone else who might have survived the sinking of a ship..." Maria shrugged helplessly.

Usopp frowned. "You didn't hear like a horn or anything?"

Maria shook her head. "No, nothing like that." A frown came over her face, her blue eyes darkening. "Although, now that you mention it...I heard what sounded like...laughing. Just thinking about that sinister noise now sends chills down my spine." The teenager shuddered as the aforementioned cackle suddenly echoed in her mind. She hoped that there weren't any other memories that were going to make her shudder like that.

"Well, that takes the stupid seahorse out of the equation..." Usopp shook his head as the curious frown was replaced by a look of grim determination. "I wish I could help, but I have to do something tonight."

"It's all right. My memory is starting to come back in pieces anyway. It's just a matter of time before it all comes back." Maria let out a yawn. "Sorry, Paulie had me working to death in the docks today for eavesdropping on some people about ship repairs. Good night."

Maria pulled her baseball cap down over heir face and made herself as comfortable as she could in the corner. As a result, she didn't see the darkened look that came over Usopp's face upon hearing her statement.

"I'm going to give Luffy the fight of his life," the bandaged boy muttered to himself. He started moving quickly, going through the shells and other such items in his bag as he started to mutter under his breath at a volume so low that Maria wouldn't have been able to hear him if she had been awake.

**So...any familiar characters, folks?**

**Btw, for the record, this entire chapter is kinda "off the grid" when it comes to the manga and anime. I needed something Maria to do, so I decided to have some filler time between events in episodes. I hope I kept the familiar characters "in character." ;)**


	4. Midnight Duel at Ten O' Clock

**Hello! Back with another chapter for you guys!**

**Thanks for the Favorites and Follows animebella09, minhthu12-Present, Ellie Field, and Flame of the Shadows!**

**This one's going to be following the episode involving a certain duel between two particular Straw Hats...you guys should know who I'm talking about at this point.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anybody except for Maria and her reactions to everything that's going on - plus any little additions to the plot that get some characters from Point A to Point B.**

**Chapter 4 - Midnight Duel at Ten O' Clock**

**Dream Break**

_"What the -"_

_"It's that Pokemon on the wanted posters! That's Grovyle!"_

_A yellow mouse with a lightning bolt-shaped tail was standing next to Maria, who had called out while pointing forward with a paw at a large, green, lizard creature with leaves growing out of the top of its head and its front arms._

Wait...leaves?!

_"We have to take him out before he can get to the Time Gear!" Maria's gaze moved worriedly to a prone form lying nearby on the crystalline, blue rock she was standing on. "We can't let Azelf's fight go down in vain. Let's go!"_

_Maria bounded forward, a strange energy starting to build in her chest before she shot a blast of fire out of her mouth. "Flamethrower!" At the same time, the yellow mouse released a blast of electricity from his red cheeks. "Thunderbolt!"_

_The two attacks went careening towards the green lizard, who held up his arms. The leaves glowed a bright blue, and a shield of energy colored the same shade appeared in front of him, causing the fire and electricity to bounce off harmlessly..._

**Dream Break**

Maria woke up when she heard Usopp getting out of bed.

She lifted her head and blinked in confusion as the long-nosed teenager scrambled out of the covers and started towards the door of the room, picking up that orange bag of his as he went. Usopp opened the door and left without even bothering to look back at the other person he had been sharing the room with.

Confused and curious, Maria got to her feet and started to follow after him. She stepped out into the hall, hoping that Usopp wasn't about to know that she was following him. Unfortunately, he happened to be standing in the hall with his arms crossed over his chest...facing her.

"You shouldn't follow me to this," Usopp stated seriously.

"I'm curious about what you're doing," Maria replied, shrugging.

Usopp sighed and shook his head, closing his eyes as he did so. "You shouldn't watch what I'm about to do. It's personal."

"Oh." Maria rubbed the back of her head, glancing down at the floor. "Sorry, I didn't know. You kinda didn't say anything, and I didn't want to bother you. Anyway, you did say not to bug you earlier."

"Yeah, I did." Usopp frowned. "But you said you needed a place to stay for the night, right? Why don't you just stay in there until morning?"

"I'm curious about what you're going to do...and honestly, I want to be able to help if I can. You know, to repay you for letting me sleep on your floor for one night."

Usopp shook his head again. "You can't help me in what I have to do."

Maria frowned, her blue eyes darkening a shade as she cocked her head in confusion. "Why not?"

"Because this is a _duel_. I have to do this on my own, or else it's not going to be a proper one." Usopp gained an expression that made Maria get a hazy picture of someone with a serious look on their face, fighting without fear. Before she could even attempt to identify who it was, however, the picture was gone.

"OK. I get it." Maria let out a sigh. "I won't do anything like that."

Usopp gave a nod of approval. "Thanks. Luffy-" The long-nosed teen cut himself off for a moment and gained an uncertain expression before regaining his determined expression again. "I mean, my enemy would be angry if he found out you were doing something to help me."

Maria blinked in confusion. _Did he just say what I thought he said? But...that's the name of that teenage captain who..._

"C-Can I watch anyway?" the blue-eyed amnesiac asked. "I haven't seen a duel before. At least, I don't _remember_ ever seeing a duel..."

Usopp blinked for a moment, looking a little befuddled at Maria's statement. Then he let out a sigh of annoyance and looked somewhat defeated, holding his hands up. "All right, fine. You can come. Just stay out of our way, all right? I don't want to see you getting hurt just because you got too close to our duel."

Maria nodded. "Okay. I'll be careful. So, where to?"

"You said you were at the docks earlier, right?"

"Yeah. That's where I've been sleeping and hanging out for the past few days."

"Well, we're going to have to work our way over there in order to get to where our duel is going to be. We've got half an hour in order to get there, which is about how long it took me to get here from there." Usopp turned and started down the hall, motioning for Maria to follow after him. The amnesiac did, falling in step with the long-nosed teenager easily, despite his fast pace. "I've got a yagara waiting around the corner. We can drop him off at the renting place, then work our way up to the ship. Easy."

"Are you sure that it's going to be all right for you?" Maria frowned slightly when they reached the stairs and started to go down them. "I mean, you're kinda covered in bandages, so you're probably hurt pretty badly under there..."

Usopp snorted. "I'm fine. Don't worry about it. It's just a scratch."

Maria opened her mouth to respond to this, but then she noticed that Usopp's voice had wavered a little bit when he had spoken...maybe he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince her?

"...Well, okay, then," Maria finally stated cautiously. "If you say so."

The two of them reached the ground floor rather quickly, then slipped out the front door of the hotel and down the steps. The canal and sidewalks were quiet; not even a dog or a cat were out wandering around the area. Maria could catch sight of faint tendrils of smoke threading out from the alleyways, making her gain the feeling that the entire city may have just turned into some sort of haunted burial ground at sea.

Usopp seemed to have the exact same idea, because he shuddered a little before muttering, "Come on, my yagara's this way."

The long-nosed teenager led Maria around a corner and under a bridge. There, they found a two-seater, yellow yagara tied to a wood post and apparently taking a nap. The sea creature woke up as soon as the two teens were nearly on top of it. It gave a cheerful, quiet whinny upon seeing the two.

"Hey," Usopp murmured back while Maria climbed into the back seat. "You mind taking us back to the renting shop? Be as quick as you can, okay? But don't try to go up _too_ many canals."

The yagara whinnied again and nodded as Usopp untied it and climbed into the front seat. As soon as the bandaged teen was sitting down in the boat, the yellow sea creature took off at a high speed down the canal, forcing Maria to slam one hand on top of her head to keep her baseball cap from flying off.

"These things can move pretty fast!" Maria yelped as they suddenly took a sharp turn and went down another canal. "I didn't think they'd be able to move across the water at this speed!"

"You haven't ridden one?" Usopp guessed, glancing back at Maria in slight surprise. He had to face forward again pretty quickly, though, because the yagara took another three sharp turns right in a row.

Maria shook her head, even though she knew Usopp couldn't see it. "No. I haven't really had the chance to. If I've had to, I've always swum from place to place."

"Swim? Wouldn't that tire you out? I mean, Water 7 _is_ a pretty big place."

"I always stayed close to the docks. I never really went anywhere else. I didn't know where else to go." After a moment, Maria added, "I still don't, really."

"Huh. Well, I guess that makes sense."

The duo fell silent for a while, the yagara continuing to make sharp turns - as well as a couple sudden ups and downs along the canals. It gave Maria a grand view of the sleeping city, as well as the great expanse of stars above. She wasn't really able to see if she could make her own constellations, however, because they were back down in the city canals in seconds.

"How much longer is it going to be?" Maria asked after they had made what felt like the umpteenth turn.

"We're almost there, I think," Usopp called back. He looked back at Maria and grinned. "Just let Captain Usopp and his trusty yagara handle the driving. We'll be there in no time!"

Maria blinked in slight confusion upon hearing that. _Captain? He's a captain? Of what?_

Before the blue-eyed amnesiac could even bother to ask, the yellow yagara slowed to a stop in front of the gate of some sort of giant pen. Within seconds, Usopp had jumped out of the boat on its back and was holding out a hand to help Maria out onto the path next to the canal. Reluctantly, the gesture was accepted, and Maria found that the long nose's grip was surprisingly strong, even if he was grimacing while she got out of the boat with his assistance.

"You're heavier than I expected," Usopp noted, frowning.

"And you've got a pretty good grip for someone who's covered from head to toe in bandages," Maria replied lightly. She glanced down at her clothes for a moment and, after making sure that she still had her hat on her head, the blue-eyed teen asked, "So, where to now?"

"It's not too far from here," Usopp replied. The determined expression that he had been carrying back at the hotel reappeared on his face. "So I'm going to have to ask you to lay low, okay? They don't know that I'm bringing someone else along, and if they see you -"

"They're going to suspect an unfair fight," Maria finished, nodding. "You mentioned something like that back at the hotel."

"Exactly." Usopp gave a triumphant nod. "Come on; I'll let you know when you have to stop following me, all right?"

"OK; sure."

The two teens walked away from the yagara pen and through a tunnel of sorts formed by the adjoining building. Maria noticed that a sign hung up on either end of the tunnel said "Bull Rental Shop," or something along those lines.

On the other side of the rental shop, the sky was once again clear for Maria to see...but a low-lying mist was closing in from all sides, it seemed - especially on the barren rock that Usopp was now starting to walk across. Maria had to jog after him in order to make sure that she could keep him in her sights.

"Well, at least you aren't going to be damaging a part of the city by fighting out here," Maria noted, looking around. Even here, she could see the city buildings standing tall out of the water. "But...where's the guy you're going to be fighting?"

"Not far." Usopp started to look around the area, his eyes scanning the mist-covered rock with what Maria thought looked like the eyes of a hawk. He gave a nod a moment later, then pointed off towards a strange, large shape with what looked like a mast attached in the distance. "That's the ship. He's probably standing on deck waiting for me now."

"Okay...so, where should I be?"

"Over there." Usopp motioned over to a rock that was jutting out of the ground nearby. "You should be all right staying behind there when we fight."

Maria frowned slightly. "You sure?"

"Positive. No go!" Usopp motioned for Maria to get moving. "They've probably spotted me by now!"

"Okay! Okay!" Maria quickly dashed over to the rock and dove behind it. She was glad for its size; the rock was more than large enough to allow her to hide behind it and leave some extra room in case any of it ended up getting torn off by the fight.

Although...how did that thought enter her mind? After all, Usopp was just a teenager, like she was. If he willingly challenged someone to a duel in his physically damaged state, the amnesiac doubted that the two of them were going to be strong enough to take out the boulder she was hiding behind.

Maria suddenly felt what seemed like a prickling at the back of her neck - it almost felt like there was someone else out there. Cautiously, she peered out from behind her rock in order to see what was going on. Her eyes widened slightly when she saw a figure jump off the ship and land on the rocky shore, one hand on his head in order to keep whatever was there from slipping off. While the figure was completely in shadow, she couldn't help but feel like she knew him from somewhere...

The figure took a few steps away from the ship, then stopped and seemed to turn to face Water 7's skyline. Maria was almost sure that he was looking for Usopp. Was this her new friend's opponent?

The blue-eyed teen heard footsteps, then turned her head and saw that the long-nosed, bandaged teen was walking forward into the swirling, low-lying fog, and towards the other figure.

From somewhere, there came a faint, childish cry that sounded like the owner of the voice was in pain: "Usopp!"

Maria felt her heart jolt for a moment. _That voice...could it be...the doctor that I met earlier this evening? But...how is that even possible?_

The girl didn't even have time to be confused about that, because seconds later, strange visions flashed through her mind that made absolutely no sense: Usopp with a smug grin on his face while a strange, brown creature with a pink top hat and antlers looked at him in shock; Usopp balancing plates on his long nose during what looked like a banquet gone drunk, while others at the table were laughing around him; Usopp, arguing with another teen with yellow hair and an eyebrow that spiraled inward; Usopp, holding what looked like three blue pipes while smirking; Usopp, with his hands crossed over his chest and a strange pirate flag behind him; Usopp, armed with a green slingshot as he aimed at a man with heart-shaped glasses who looked like he was aiming to kill a young girl...

Maria shook her head as these and more passed through her mind. They weren't memories - the amnesiac was sure of that, since Usopp obviously didn't recognize her when she had first run into him - but there was something about them that made the girl think that she had seen them before somewhere...

"This doesn't make any sense," Maria muttered, frowning to herself. "This is just like the other times...like back in the shipyard, and..." She but her lower lip as she thought back to the strange things she had seen in her dreams at night - probably the only thing that she would manage to remember the following morning, even though hey did nothing to help her rediscover who she really was or where she came from. If anything, they just made the world even more confusing!

Maria gripped her head in her hands. "What is _wrong_ with me?"

"You came here without shred of cowardice in you. Good."

The teen blinked her blue eyes for a moment. The voice that she had heard, despite it being spoke at seemingly a normal volume, still managed to rocket its way across the rocky area to reach her. Maria removed her hands from her head and looked up around the rock as the strangely familiar, grim voice continued.

"No matter what happens, you can't regret it! This is just what you asked for!"

Maria's blue eyes widened slightly. _That voice...isn't he the guy who...?_

"That's perfect," Usopp replied at the same volume. "You'd better not go easy on me. I won't be the underdog this time. Cause I already know how to defeat you!"

Maria blinked. _This_ time? Does that mean the two had fought before?

The other figure across the rocks moved his arms from being crossed over his chest to hanging at his sides, fists clenched. It almost seemed like he was tense.

Maria was certain that she had misheard the almost rubbery noise that accompanied the movements of Usopp's opponent.

"Make no mistake. I'm not like any opponent you've faced before." Usopp paused a moment before continuing, but didn't shift his stance or do anything that Maria could see that might have hinted at some sort of hesitation. "We've been friends a long time. I know all your powers - all your strengths, and all your weaknesses. But there's something you don't know about me. I have...eight thousand men on my side!"

Maria stiffened when she heard Usopp's exclamation, and nearly let out an exclamation of surprise, but remembered at the last second to slap a hand over her mouth - after all, her new friend had said that she shouldn't be there...considering that it was a _one on one_ duel.

The brown-haired teen pulled down on the brim of her red and orange baseball cap and prayed that Usopp actually _wasn't_ planning on botching the duel by bringing in back-up to kill his opponent for him or something.

"If you don't surrender now, I'll order them to attack!" Usopp added.

"WHAT?!" came the childish shriek from the ship again. "Why didn't he tell me?!"

"Seriously?" came another voice - a male's, definitely, but Maria had a hard time hearing his voice compared to Usopp, his opponent's, and the high-pitched whining. From what the amnesiac could tell, however, it seemed that this other guy wasn't quite so surprised. "Just go inside."

In fact, it seemed as though the other guy was just plain annoyed.

"If you're gonna fight, then at least take this seriously!" Usopp's opponent barked. The anger and force behind it sent chills running up and down Maria's spine...as well as more recognition to the voice and it's owner.

_Wasn't he...the captain who came to Dock 1 this morning?_ Maria pondered. A frown flickered over her face. _Wait...they mentioned that a member of their group was missing...and didn't that orange-haired girl yell out "Usopp"?_

"Uuuusoppodu!" Usopp responded, seemingly ignoring his opponent's angry demand. "You have razor-sharp needles tucked between all of your teeth!"

There came yet another childish cry from the ship. Now, Maria was absolutely certain that this was the large, muscular doctor that she had met before...considering all the bandages that Usopp had all over him, her new friend was probably the crew member that the doctor had gone to treat. Only...he wasn't a crew member anymore...and Usopp had turned the doctor away.

"It hurts just to imagine that!" the doctor wailed.

"I'm telling you, just _go inside_," came the annoyed voice again.

"You've got prickly cactus spines under your fingernails!" Usopp continued.

It was at this point that Usopp's opponent - no, Straw Hat Luffy, Maria mentally corrected - had had enough with Usopp's yelling. He started running forward even before Usopp had finished his newest call to arms, and his left hand grabbed his right shoulder.

"Gum Gum..." Luffy's voice started to increase in volume as he brought his arm back. "Pistol!"

It was at this point that Usopp put his hand over his mouth and coughed. Something red spurted between his fingers, causing Maria to stiffen behind her hiding place and Luffy to stop his arm from coming forward towards his opponent.

The coughing continued, large amount of red liquid spilled onto the rocky ground as Usopp fell to his knees and put down a hand to steady himself. Maria was half-tempted to crawl out there to make sure that Usopp was all right - and maybe stop Luffy herself, if at all possible - but then she noticed that Luffy had stopped himself. The angry look that had been on his face a few seconds ago had shifted somewhat. Now it included...concern? Pain? Maria wasn't quite sure as to which one was passing through the teenage captain's mind right at that moment.

"USOPP! PLEASE DON'T DIE!" the doctor screamed. Maria was amazed at how loud and how young the doctor could sound. She normally thought that someone of his muscular size would have a much deeper voice. A much older one, too.

Just what _was_ it with this pirate crew?

"Special Attack...Ketchup Star."

Maria's head turned sharply from the ship in the distance to the confrontation occurring nearby. _Did Usopp just say "ketchup"?_

"Holding pity for your enemy?" Usopp continued as he started to get to his feet. Luffy took a step back, his left hand still resting on his right shoulder. "That's only arrogance, don't you think?"

Luffy gritted his teeth, then brought his right arm back as he moved towards Usopp. Before he could even take a step forward, however, Usopp yelled something else as he brought a hand up.

"Flash Dial!"

A blast of something that might have been the equivalent of a dark room suddenly filling with light came out of the object that Usopp was holding.

Maria squeezed her eyes shut as best she could when the light suddenly flooded out of nowhere. Spots danced across the back of her eyelids for a few seconds, and something told her that Luffy was suffering an identical situation of sorts because of the blast. Did Usopp mean to blind his opponent for a reason?

"Now, Special Attack, Egg Star!"

Maria heard something go flying, and she snapped her eyes open in order to try and see what Usopp had just done. Oddly enough, she was able to see properly right when something slammed into Luffy's face and left an odd, yellow-ish gunk all over him.

"Again!" _Zing!_ "Again!" _Zing!_ "Again!" _Zing!_

Luffy didn't look like he was enjoying the barrage at all. Maria couldn't exactly blame him - he was just hit in the face with an _egg_, for crying out loud, and Usopp didn't exactly say that it was rotten. Then again, he probably didn't have to now, considering that the amnesiac could smell the sulfuric stench from her hiding place.

"Gah, it stinks! They're rotten!" Luffy exclaimed. He glared at Usopp, who was fiddling with something in his bag. "Dammit, would you stop messing around already?"

_Messing around? Is that all that Usopp is doing?_ Maria frowned in confusion and scratched her head. _He seems smarter than just someone who would take a person out with just parlor tricks. Especially considering everything that just went through my head a few minutes ago..._

"You think this is a joke, huh?" Usopp responded with a growl. "Cause I'm dead serious!"

"Oh, yeah?" Luffy responded.

"That's right! This is the way I fight!" Usopp loaded his green slingshot -_ where did he pick that up from?_ Maria wondered - and fired the ammo at Luffy. "Careful, that gaping mouth of yours is going to get burned!"

The bullet went flying into Luffy's mouth, and the boy reflexively swallowed it before his face turned an angry red. Maria became alarmed when she saw that she couldn't see his pupils, but then watched with some concern while Luffy bent down a little and did his best to cover his mouth with both hands.

"Special Attack, Tobasco Star!" Usopp declared.

At the same time, Luffy bent his head back and released a _huge_ flame that lit up the area. "HOOOOOOOT!"

Reflexively, Maria let out a yelp and jumped back a little in alarm. _Since when does that happen when someone eats Tobasco sauce?_

Things were getting stranger and stranger by the second...and something told Maria that it was only going to get worse for Luffy from there. Usopp was absolutely _ruthless!_

"I wouldn't move around too much if I were you," Usopp added. "Cause the whole battlefield is Caltrop Hell!"

"Ehhh?" Maria blinked in confusion. _Did I hear that right? What's that supposed to mean?_

At the same time, Luffy had fallen back onto the ground, considering that he had bent so far back in the first place as a result of the Tobasco Star he had swallowed. Maria heard the sound of metal bouncing away a little bit from where Luffy fell, followed closely by a yell of pain from said captain.

Maria shifted a little nervously, but hen her right foot hit against something that caused it some discomfort. Turning, the blue-eyed teen caught sight of the source of the trouble, and her eyes widened.

"When did he scatter these all over the place?" Maria asked quietly, picking up the spiky object carefully and inspecting it closely. She looked around to make sure there weren't any nearby and, finding none, relaxed slightly. "Well, I shouldn't have to worry too much about getting punctured myself, but..." A frown worked its way over her face. "Isn't this fighting dirty? I mean, a duel is about fighting face to face, not with a slingshot and ammo...isn't it?"

"Listen, Luffy!" Usopp called out. "You can pity me if you want, but I'm gonna beat you and take the _Merry_ with me! And I don't care what it takes!"

_Merry?_ It took Maria a moment to realize that Usopp was talking about the ship Luffy and the orange-haired girl were willing to pay so much for in order to get repairs. She also remembered that Usopp wasn't there when they found out that the ship couldn't be fixed...

_Did he really have to take the information this badly? Or did they not give it to him gently enough?_

By this time, Luffy had managed to get to his feet, his hat hanging on his back, but Usopp was ready for Luffy before the other teen could even land a hit.

"Special Attack, Pepper Star!"

A cloud of brownish dust sudden appeared around Luffy's head, and the pirate captain started sneezing uncontrollably, while at the same time stumbling around the battlefield as a result of the force of said sneezes. Multiple spikes went through the black-haired teen, causing him to cry out in pain.

"Like I said, I know you, so I know which attacks are going to work the best!" Usopp started rifling through the bag at his side again without so much as glancing down at it.

Meanwhile, Luffy had finally managed to stop stumbling around and getting himself poked by the spikes by placing a lot of his weight on the fingertips of one hand, and the teen captain was coughing instead of sneezing.

"Dammit," Luffy cursed. "This stuff stinks, my mouth is burning, and it hurts!" He glared over at Usopp, who looked equally angry.

"I'm not gonna give you an inch, you hear me?!" Usopp barked back. "Special Attack, Shruiken Shooting Star!" The long-nosed teen pulled back on his slingshot and let his ammo fly.

Maria's eyes widened in alarm when she saw the long band of star-shaped metal go flying, then separate into thin sheets. Just as quickly, the words "ninja star" came to mind, and the next thing was _Where in Water 7 did he manage to pick those up? I don't recall anything about a ninja setting up shop in the bazaar - the shipwrights probably would have talked about it!_

Luffy saw the attack coming, it seemed, though, because his eyes widened seconds before he jumped out of the way. He carefully avoided every single spike that was sitting on the rocky ground with relative ease, making slightly panicked noises as he attempted to keep his balance.

And then Usopp let fly _another_ batch of ninja stars, but the results were pretty much the same as Luffy managed to avoid them. However, he actually rolled out of the way, as there weren't any more spikes near him...and his back was now up against a rock near Maria's own hiding place!

Usopp launched a single ninja star at Luffy since his back was against a wall. He aimed it at Luffy's head, but the teen dodged by moving to his left while Usopp reloaded another Shuriken Shooting Star.

Maria had to look over the top of her hiding place in order to be able to see both duelers at once, now, and she wasn't exactly liking what was going on all that much. She understood that this was something that the two of them had to do alone, but...well, there are just some things you take a slingshot to, and other things you'd grab more grown-up weapons for. The amnesiac wondered if Usopp's family had something against weapons like that, and that was why he used such unconventional bullets and a slingshot instead of a pistol.

Usopp fired again at Luffy, and the ninja stars went flying in a wide pattern at the teen captain, who leapt away from the rock - and Maria, to an extent - while the sharpened metal became stuck in the rock. Just when Luffy had managed to land safely, another sting of ninja stars came firing at him, and Luffy jumped away again without so much as getting a scratch on him.

Maria found herself becoming amazed at Luffy's speed. She thought the yagaras were fast before, but Luffy was really light on his feet! Obviously, he'd been in situations similar to this before, but if he was good at dodging attacks, how good was he when he actually managed to find an opening and hit his opponent?

Both of the duelers were panting heavily, now, taking a quick breather before launching themselves into the thick of it again. Maria didn't see how Usopp could get as tired as Luffy was, but then again, he had been carrying around a lot of metal with him a moment ago. The blue-eyed amnesiac suspected that Usopp had a lot of arm strength in order to do something like that.

That's when Luffy noticed something else. He lifted his head up a little and started to look around where he was standing, causing Maria herself to frown.

"What are you looking for?" the brown-haired girl asked quietly.

"Smoke?" Luffy asked quietly. Maria was barely able to pick up the question, and was surprised that she could hear the black-haired teen's question from where she sat.

"I'm using a Breath Dial," Usopp stated.

Luffy looked over at Usopp, as did Maria.

"Breath Dial?" Maria frowned. "What does that do? ...Is it like that Flash Dial thing he used earlier?"

Usopp tightened his grip on his slingshot. "You didn't notice the smell because of the rotten eggs. And now you're completely surrounded by gas!"

Maria's eyes widened. _Gas? Like the fuel?_

Usopp pulled back on the slingshot, which was now loaded with a small, yellow pellet.

"Sorry," he grunted quietly before letting it fly at Luffy and the gas cloud. "Special Attack, Fire Star!"

The resulting explosion nearly blinded Maria, and she was forced to hunker down behind her rock as the energies unleashed went flying all over the rocky outcropping. Usopp could probably take care of himself - after all, he came equipped to make that big explosion, so why wouldn't he have come with his own protection? - but Maria doubted that she was going to be able to last for long with so much as a hair poking out from behind her hiding place!

She just hoped that Luffy was still alive somehow...it confused her at this point as to why she would care for a pirate and his crew, but something deep inside told her that Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates were a crew that could be trusted. After all, the doctor was nice enough...and Usopp probably was, too, when he wasn't being provoked by the loss of a ship.

"Now that's gonna sting!" came a voice from nearby - most likely on the ship. It sounded somewhat muted, and not just because of the distance. The explosion's shockwave of sound had been loud enough that Maria suspected she'd been given momentary hearing damage.

...how Maria had come up with that explanation, she had no clue.

"Luffy! Usopp!" another voice yelled as the light started to fade - a girl's voice, but Maria wasn't exactly sure who it might have been. Whoever they were, though, they were clearly a member of the crew if they knew both of the duelers by name.

Cautiously, Maria got up from her hiding place and looked around in order to gauge the damage that the explosion might have caused to both the landscape and the two combatants.

The area was clearly scorched - in some places, embers were actually _burning_ on the rocky ground - and the two boys were lying flat on their backs. Luffy, even though he had been at the center of the fight, didn't even look like he had been burned to a crisp, leaving Maria amazed at how much damage the pirate captain could take. Her gaze moved as she started to look for Usopp, and the teen froze where she finally found him _lying on the rock she had been hiding behind._

"U-Usopp?" Maria asked hesitantly, looking at the bandaged teen with wide eyes. "A-are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Usopp responded sourly, quietly, panting heavily and not even bothering to look back at the amnesiac he had brought with him.

"LUFFY!" came the doctor's scream. "USOPP!"

There were a few moments of silence before Maria decided to speak again.

"He seems pretty worried about you," the amnesiac stated quietly. "I think they all are."

Usopp made a scoffing noise, then started to get to his feet, still not looking at Maria and instead glaring in one particular direction - maybe that's where Luffy had been blown? She couldn't really see with all this smoke still drifting around from the explosion...

"I'm no fool," Usopp growled. "I realize it's going to take more than that to beat you."

There came the sound of footsteps from somewhere in the smoke in front of them. Usopp sent a quick glance back at Maria, and she obeyed the unspoken suggestion to get her head out of sight. Most of it, anyway - the amnesiac was still curious enough to poke out from the side of the rock in order to see what was going to happen.

"I know you, Luffy. You fight every battle with all your strength."

Maria could see the shadowy form of Luffy through the smoke, now. It didn't look like he was tense or at all prepared to punch Usopp like he had been at the beginning of the fight. The amnesiac wondered if he was only just barely capable of standing on his feet after Usopp's Fire Star.

"But I'm ready for any technique you've got!" Usopp pulled back his slingshot and lined it up with Luffy's form.

Luffy suddenly burst out into a run, the smoke around his form swirling.

"Special Attack-" Usopp started.

"Gum Gum-" Luffy yelled as he burst out of the smoke cloud. "Gatling!"

And fists starting flying _everywhere_. Maria's eyes widened considerably when she saw how many fists Luffy was able to generate - and how his arms _stretched_! It was absolutely impossible that someone was able to have their bones, muscles, and skin move like that!

What kind of human _was_ Luffy?

"Blasting Cactus Star!"

Usopp let fly a green pellet this time and it collided with one of Luffy's fists. A look of alarm passed over the pirate captain's face right before the pellet exploded, releasing small spikes in only Luffy's direction. Cuts started appearing all over as the spikes either grazed him or stuck into him.

As a result of the blast from the pellet that sent the spikes flying, Luffy was sent flying a short distance before he was sent skidding into the dirt. The boy started to get up, but he let out a cry of pain as a result of Usopp's latest attack.

At the same time, the long-nosed slingshot user bounced three yellow pellets in his hand before catching them and sending them flying at Luffy, who was gripping one shoulder. "Triple Exploding Star!"

Maria's blue eyes widened. She saw what how big of an explosion that Usopp had managed to create last time - some of the carnage was still around them, in fact - but the fact that there were _three_ going off at once truly alarmed her.

Despite the fact that Maria had come there with Usopp, the blue-eyed amnesiac still wanted Luffy to be able to get out of this alive. In fact, she wasn't even sure that she wanted either of them to go any further with this than they already had!

Luffy saw the pellets coming, and he quickly scrambled out of the way before three explosions went off behind him, shaking the ground with the pure force of the impact.

Three more exploding pellets made their way up into the air, and Usopp fired again along Luffy's chosen path while the young pirate dodged the explosions. The pellets kept going off, one after the other, forcing Luffy to continue dodging.

When Usopp paused in the explosions around the area, Luffy turned sharply in order to face the long-nosed teen. Maria saw him bring his arm back, and quickly pulled behind her rock in order to avoid anymore oncoming attacks.

"Now Gum Gum Pistol!"

Maria tilted her head back in order to watch what was going on above her, and her eyes widened in alarm when Luffy's fist connected with Usopp's left cheek, sending blood flying from his nose as the long-nosed teen was sent flying from where he was standing. She turned her head, watching as Usopp bounced three times on the rocky ground before coming to a stop, then heard a distinct _snap!_

Maria peered over the top of her hiding place to look at Luffy with wide, awe-filled eyes. Such strength! And that ability to stretch! No wonder this guy was a pirate captain!

But...where did he get that ability to stretch? Was he born with it?

Luffy suddenly started running towards Usopp, leaving his hands far behind him as his arms stretched out. "It's time to put an end to this!" The teen jumped up into the air. "Gum Gum Bazooka!"

Maria's eyes widened upon hearing the name of the rocket launcher-type of gun as Luffy's arms came flying in front of him and went straight for Usopp.

_He's definitely going to go flying! Usopp is-_

Maria's train of thought was cut short as Usopp held a hand in front of him - right in the path of the attack - and the attack seemed to do no damage at all. Instead, Luffy's arms suddenly became a bit wobbly, and a look of alarm crossed Luffy's face as his arms retracted.

Maria looked quickly back and forth between the two combatants, and she caught sight of a strange, pink, spiraled shell with a bunch of holes in it planted on Usopp's open palm.

"Recognize this?" Usopp asked darkly. He raised his hand - and the shell with it. "I'm guessing that Bazooka would've hurt! Let's find out!" Usopp ran towards Luffy, who was still mid-air, then jumped up so that he could collide with the captain.

"Impact!"

_Click._

Maria's blue eyes widened in alarm when both Usopp and Luffy were sent flying backwards - the latter of the two with blood flying from his face.

There came a scream from the ship nearby - the doctor's scream, followed shortly by a girl's voice exclaiming, "He used an Impact Dial!"

"There's that Dial thing again," Maria muttered, frowning to herself as she scratched her head. "Is that shell thing one of many kinds or something? Because I haven't seen the shipwrights or anyone else using shells like that before. Where could pirates have picked up technology like that?"

Usopp suddenly let out a yell of pain and collapsed onto his knees while Luffy was still flying through the air. Then he lifted his head and cried out, "I WON'T LOSE TO YOU!"

Right then, Luffy landed on his feet with an explosion of noise as rock shifted from the impact. Usopp lifted his head and looked up at Luffy, as did Maria. The amnesiac shuddered when she saw how his eyes were shadowed over, like he was so mad that no one could see his eyes...and the cuts and other wounds that completely covered him didn't exactly look like they were very easy to fight with, either.

Luffy and Usopp stared at each other for a moment, and something about the eye contact caused Maria to gain another headache and another blast of visions of Usopp, Luffy, and other strange figures interacting together and having a good time.

She was starting to get the feeling that these were other members of Luffy's crew, but...she wasn't entirely sure. Maybe...maybe one of them would tell her about what was going on after this fight was over.

Luffy suddenly brought his arm back, stretching it so far that it may as well have reached the edge of the rocky area where they were fighting. A loud yell accompanied the movement, followed by the black-haired captain yelling, "Gum Gum Bullet!"

The fist came back as Luffy yelled those three words, and it slammed into Usopp's stomach. The bandaged, long-nosed teen took it seemingly well - he didn't go flying backwards for half a mile - but then he coughed up a large amount of blood, causing Maria to gasp and clap her hands over her own mouth.

"Usopp!" came the doctor's cry of pain from the ship. Maria knew that he must want to come down and treat the teen so badly, but...that much restraint for a doctor spoke wonders for his loyalty to his captain, as well.

"You must all have a lot of honor," Maria murmured to herself, gripping at her jacket with her right hand. "I wish that I knew people like you. Could remember people like all of you."

Maria didn't even bother to look over at Usopp when she heard him collapse; she'd figured that after an attack like _that_, no one would be truly able to stand for all that long. Besides, the hit seemed to have a sense of...finality to it. Like the fight was over right then and there. The amnesiac didn't know _how_ she knew, but...it was like she almost sensed it.

Maybe she had experience in fights that she couldn't remember?

There came more sounds of bodies shifting, and Maria looked up to see that Usopp had managed to move himself onto his side while Luffy was now sitting on his knees, still breathing heavily from unleashing that attack.

"You idiot..." Luffy bowed his head. "You knew it would end like this! You knew you could never beat me!"

Usopp didn't move. Maria felt her heart clench when she wondered if the bandaged teen had died when he took that punch. She put that thought aside, however, when she saw that Usopp's side was rising and falling at least a little bit - not much, but it was still somewhat noticeable.

Luffy stayed on his knees for a moment longer, then slowly good to his feet, his hands clenched at his sides. Then he turned and started walking away, still somewhat tense from the fight. Maria couldn't help but wonder if he had exhausted himself so much that now it was taking all his strength to stand up, but then she put that thought aside - he'd been able to stand after the bomb. Something told her that he could still move around without any fear from collapsing at this point.

Luffy stopped walking for a moment, then leaned down and picked up a straw hat with a red band from the ground before putting it on his head. Maria realized with a jolt that it was his, and wondered for a moment when it had fallen off and _how in the world_ that thing had managed to stay in one piece.

"Do whatever you want with the _Merry_," Luffy stated, his voice wavering a little.

Usopp's head shifted, and Maria released a sigh of relief upon seeing that he was still conscious.

"I won't let anything hold us back," Luffy continued, not bothering to look back. "We're getting a new ship and sailing forward." The black-haired pirate captain started walking forward again.

Maria's head came under yet _another_ pounding headache as she saw Usopp arguing with Luffy about sitting on top of some sheep head on a ship - the _Merry_, maybe? - then talking about going to some place called Elbath, the village of warriors. Wherever that was. The amnesiac wasn't quite able to make heads or tails of it, but again like at the beginning of the duel, something told her that these weren't memories - not entirely, at least.

That something told her they were memories from the past of the people on the Straw Hat crew. Which Maria shouldn't be seeing. Which made them visions instead.

While Maria wasn't too sure about the difference between memory and vision at this point, she was pretty sure that the words had been chosen for a reason. A reason from her past, which she would have to figure out sooner or later. Preferably sooner.

Maria watched Luffy stop walking and stand next to the ship. Now that the fog had been cleared, she could see that there were a number of figures on the deck by the sheep's head, which was acting as a figurehead. None of them were really moving, and she didn't see the muscular doctor with the top hat standing among them.

After a few moments, a small figure jumped from the deck onto the rocky ground and started running towards Usopp. Maria was wise to duck behind her rock as the figure approached; no one other than Usopp knew that she was there, and no one else was going to know about her being there right now.

If anything else, something told Maria that she had to be the one to tell them herself - it couldn't be an accidental discovery.

The amnesiac watched quietly as the small figure - now revealed to be some kind of animal with hooves and horns sticking out of a pink top hat that looked _really familiar_ - placed medical items near Usopp before looking at him with teary eyes and running off. Maria's heart went out to the little guy, and she wondered why he'd been completely unable to actually treat Usopp of his injuries. It looked like he wanted to, but...maybe someone on the crew had told him not to?

It took a few minutes before the pirates disappeared into the ship. When Maria saw the lights of the cabin come on, she quickly crawled over to where Usopp was lying.

"Usopp?" Maria asked quietly. "Are you all right?"

Usopp shifted his head so that he could look up at her. The amnesiac was somewhat alarmed to discover that there was a puddle underneath his head and - _were those tears?_

There was a hurt look on the long-nosed teen's face, but that was quickly covered up by a sour expression. "Leave me alone."

Maria became somewhat taken aback by this. "Wh-what? Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I can take care of myself." Usopp started to shift a little, but his limbs shook as he attempted to get up. However, he collapsed seconds later with a grunt of pain. "Just go, okay? I don't need your pity."

The defeated teen's words stung, and Maria flinched back a little. Her eyebrows knit together in concern, but eventually the sour look that was on Usopp's face won out, and the amnesiac started to back away from the long-nosed teen. "I was going to offer to give you a hand to get on the ship, but...if you want me to leave you alone, I can do that, too..."

Usopp didn't even respond to Maria's statement; instead, he started working at trying to get to his feet again while Maria got to her own and turned her attention to the ship. Already, she could see that the pirate crew had left the ship and were starting to trek along the rocky area towards the city.

_I hope that Luffy is all right..._ Maria thought to herself, biting her lower lip.

That's when she caught sight of him: a large, muscular figure carrying what looked like a large pack on his back, and had a top hat on top of his head. Words from earlier that day came back almost instantly: _"If you need anything, don't be afraid to come and find us."_

"I know that it's right after...what just happened, but..." Maria frowned. "Maybe...maybe they can give me some help with these weird visions that aren't my memories...but sometimes feel like they could be."

With that, the brown-haired amnesiac pulled down on her red and orange baseball cap and started after the figures in the distance, leaving Usopp behind as he had asked.

***Sniffle* I didn't really like this part of the arc...two friends going after each other like that. Oi, vey.**

**Still, things are gonna start getting interesting next chapter. You guys can probably guess what I'm planning next. ;) See you next time!**


	5. Meeting the Crew

**Hi, guys! I've brought you another chapter! ;)**

**Thanks to crazyslots, Ren Mizushima, OblivionDoctor, Blahblahcat, Mr. Jay Black, zenmaster95, and eclipse2012 for the favs and follows!**

**Yay, eclipse is my first reviewer! I'm glad you like the story so far, and I insist that you go and look more into One Piece than you already have! It's really fun!**

**And remember guys - I don't own the Straw Hat crew - Maria's mine, though.**

**Chapter 5 - Meeting the Crew**

Trailing the five pirates and their luggage-laden yagaras was actually a lot less difficult than Maria had originally imagined. Sure, the sea creatures were fast in the water and knew the city like the back of their fins, but it looked like Luffy and the others had grabbed everything that was theirs - including three _tangerine trees_ - and just loaded the yagaras with them.

As a result, Maria was only barely able to keep up with the yagaras, who didn't take any of the canals up over the city buildings for one reason or another. She could guess that they were trying to find a place to stay for the night - and maybe until they found a new ship - but it wasn't going to be a permanent apartment. So that meant hotels.

The amnesiac's guess was proven to be true rather quickly, as they soon arrived at a hotel with a flat roof in a residential section of the town, not even taking the water elevator, as that probably wasn't operating at this ungodly hour of the night.

Maria swam up to the sidewalk in front of the hotel just as the five figures disappeared inside. The last one of them to enter the building - a young man with green hair and a white shirt - stopped at the entrance and looked down at the water, forcing Maria to duck her head under so that she wouldn't be seen. She treaded barely under the water, watching as the green-haired pirate looked around the area before looking at the water. When he finally turned and walked inside, shutting the door behind him, Maria came up and took in a big gulp of air through her nose - no use letting them know that she was actually out there.

"I'd better get in there before I can't follow them to where they're staying," Maria murmured quietly to herself. The amnesiac reached up and grabbed one of the wooden posts that the pirates' yagaras were tied to, giving a nod in greeting to the sea creature as she did, then pulled herself up onto the sidewalk.

The action took more grunting and straining than it would have earlier in the day, mainly considering the fact that it was the middle of the night, when people were supposed to be _sleeping_, and Maria had already spent a large amount of energy running around the city earlier in the day.

Maria quickly scrambled onto the sidewalk and moved into the lobby, catching sight of the back of the green-haired pirate's white shirt as he walked up a set of stairs at the opposite end of the hotel's lobby. The amnesiac waited for a second, then moved after him by dashing across the lobby and starting up the stairs after the pirate. The blue-eyed teen did her best to stay as far down the steps as she could without also losing sight of the green-haired man, but it was somewhat difficult as the stairs were somewhat spiraled...and Maria was sure that the green-haired pirate must have caught sight of her (or, at least, heard her coming up the stairs).

So, why did he let her continue to follow them?

Maria started to feel increasingly nervous as she climbed up the stairs after the pirates, then out into a hall lined with doors - entrances into hotel rooms. None of the pirates turned around to so much as _look_ at her, instead moving towards a door on the left. A girl with orange hair - the same girl who had come with Luffy to Dock 1, Maria realized - unlocked the door and disappeared inside the room, followed by the other members of the crew...who were all carrying something except for the girl.

Maria swallowed slightly as the green-haired pirate started towards the door himself. The brown-haired amnesiac steeled herself; it was now or never, if she was going to be able to talk to the Straw Hat pirates about anything that happened at the duel or concerning her amnesia trouble. The teen started forward after the green-haired pirate, praying that he'd let her into the room before demanding to know who she was and what she was doing following after them.

Unfortunately, Maria never even got to get a foot into the hotel room. Just as she was about to, the green-haired teenager pirate in front of her turned around sharply and glared down at her while also setting himself squarely in the doorway.

Maria took a step back in surprise when the pirate locked eyes with her; she hadn't known that a pirate's eyes could bore such holes into a person!

"Why have you followed us all the way up here?" the green-haired teen growled. One hand shifted to the three swords that hung at his side, and he gripped the hilt of the white one tightly.

Maria swallowed nervously. "D-don't be mad - please. I..." The amnesiac quickly fumbled around for something that she could say that might be a bit more believable than what she really came to do. "...I just wanted to meet you guys, that's all."

A bright orange shock of hair appeared behind the swordsman, and Maria's blue eyes moved and locked with the brown orbs of another teenage girl - the same girl who had come with Luffy to the docks.

"Hey...you were in the shipyard, right?" the orange-haired girl behind the swordsman asked.

The green-haired teen's gaze moved from Maria to the girl behind him. "You know her?"

"I haven't exactly been able to introduce myself to any of you...but yeah, I was there when you guys were in Dock 1 earlier today," Maria admitted, rubbing the back of her head. "My name's Maria, and I'm...I'm hoping that you guys might be able to help me."

"What makes you think that we can help you?" the orange-haired girl asked, frowning.

"There's this...this feeling I've been getting," Maria replied nervously. She glanced up and down the hall. "Can...Can I talk about this in there? This isn't something that I like to talk about where others might be able to hear..."

The green-haired teen and orange-haired girl exchanged a glance - or rather, a guarded expression and a concerned one that morphed into a glare.

The swordsman let out a low growl, then looked over at Maria. "Fine." He moved back into the hotel room, letting Maria step inside before shutting the door behind her.

Maria looked around the room, taking in each member of the pirate crew: the green-haired swordsman, the orange-haired girl, a blond-haired young man with a cigarette in his mouth and bangs flopping over one eye, leaving one curly eyebrow exposed, and the muscular doctor with the large pink hat. Her eyes settled on Luffy, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed with his straw hat on his head and bandages wrapped up and down his arms. The boy had a blank, yet also expectant look on his face.

"Come on," the swordsman growled behind Maria. "We don't have all night to just sit around and stare at each other."

Maria stiffened when the green-haired teen growled, then turned slightly in order to look back at him. "S-sorry. It's just that I haven't seen a pirate crew like you guys before. At least...I don't remember it. See...I kinda lost my memory a week ago."

"You lost your memory?" the orange-haired girl repeated in surprise. "Did you hear a horn or something like that?"

"No - not at all. The farthest back my memory goes is a bright blue flash in the middle of a storm and some pretty creepy laughter." Maria shuddered a little at the memory. "But that's not really the weirdest thing that I've ever seen since then. At least, it doesn't _seem_ strange compared to everything else."

"What do you mean?" piped up the doctor, frowning slightly.

Maria paused, then but her lower lip and started to twirl a finger in her brown hair nervously. "I don't now how you're going to react to this, but...I've been getting visions lately."

Luffy sat up a little straighter when he heard this; the others simply exchanged glances.

"Visions?" The orange-haired girl frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I'm seeing things in my dreams that almost feel like real-life events that have happened here." Maria looked down at her open hands. "Things like one man freezing an entire section of ocean so that people can go to an inhabited island, and faces of people and glimpses of places that I can hardly remember when I wake up. Everyone in Water 7 seems to think that all I'm doing is regaining my memories whenever I fall asleep, but...these _visions_ feel way different from that."

If Maria had looked up, she would have seen the pirates exchange glances.

"Besides," the amnesiac added, "for some reason, each vision I get has at least one of you guys in it."

_That_ got their attention.

"How is _that_ even possible?" the orange-haired girl demanded. "We haven't even seen each other before today!"

"That's the problem - I don't know!" Maria shot back. "But every time I see you guys, I know that it _definitely_ isn't a memory."

"Is it possible that you ate a Devil Fruit?" the blond-haired teen in the suit spoke up.

Maria looked over and blinked in confusion. "Devil Fruit?"

"It's a fruit that gives you a special ability while also taking away your ability to swim," the blond teen explained. "It's possible that you ate one before you lose your memory."

Maria blinked for a moment, then frowned and shook her head. "No, that couldn't be it. I swim in the canals in order to get from one place to another sometimes. I had to do that a couple times when I was following you guys."

"WHAT?!"

The blue-eyed teen flinched back when the entire crew - except for Luffy - yelled this out in exclamation.

"But...but that shouldn't be possible!" How can someone have an ability like that without eating a Devil Fruit?" the orange-haired girl was at a loss for words.

Maria shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I don't remember."

"Or you could be lying about the visions," the green-haired swordsman responded.

"I'm _not_ lying about this!" Maria argued, turning to glare up at the swordsman. "It's been happening almost every single night for the last week! Every time I fall asleep, not only do I get a glimpse at my memories, but I also see what's going on somewhere else! It sounds impossible, but it's true!"

"And what do you expect us to do about it?"

Maria turned to look at the blond-haired teenage boy again. "I don't now. But something tells me that you guys might be able to help me in the long run."

"I doubt that we're going to be much help..."

Maria's blue eyes blinked in confusion, then moved to look up at the muscular doctor. "What do you mean?"

"Amnesia is a tricky business. It can recover itself at the most unexpected of times, or the brain can never truly recover." The brown, furry man frowned. "I think it's pretty incredible that you managed to remember a portion of the incident."

"I think it's incredible she hasn't reacted to Chopper's monstrous appearance," the blond-haired teen responded dubiously.

Maria blinked for a moment, then her vision started to blur and darken. She flinched back, startled, as the hotel room was changed to a beach at sunset. In front of her was the same yellow mouse with the thunderbolt tail that she had been seeing for the past day or so.

_"Hi, my name's Pika," the creature stated. "I'm glad to see that you're all right. What's your name?"_

The scene quickly changed, but this next one did not contain sound. Instead, it showed strange creatures that looked like animals, but were colored in a variety of shades that shouldn't have been possible with them. In the forefront was what looked like a humanoid cobalt hedgehog with bright, fun-seeking emerald eyes and a knowing smirk that was begging for trouble.

Maria's vision darkened again, and she shook her head in an attempt to clear up her vision. Seconds later, she could see the hotel room and the pirates, who were all staring at her with mixed looks of shock, interest, and concern.

"Are you all right?" the blond asked, concerned.

"I think..." Maria started, panting from exertion, "...that I've run into talking animals before that look stranger than your friend does."

There came a chuckling noise from somewhere in the room, and everyone's heads turned to look at Luffy, who looked like he was enjoying himself.

"That was a memory then, right?" Luffy guessed, still clearly humored.

"Uh...yeah, I guess so." Maria rubbed the back of her head. "If it is, it's the first time I've actually been able to see it so clearly." A slight smile tugged at Maria's lips.

"What's your name, kid?" the green-haired swordsman asked.

_Aren't we about the same age?_ "Like I said before, my name's Maria." The blue-eyed teen looked around the room. "So, who are you guys?"

"I'm Luffy, the man who's gonna be King of the Pirates!" Luffy jammed a thumb to his chest, grinning.

"Pirates have a king?" Maria blinked in confusion.

"It's the title they give to the man who conquers the Grand Line," the blond-haired boy explained somewhat indifferently. "I'm Sanji, this crew's cook. If you're looking for any specific delicacies, let me know."

Behind Maria, the green-haired swordsman muttered something under his breath. Sanji was on his feet and glaring at the swordsman in an instant.

"What was that?!" Sanji roared.

"Why don't you let her play darts with your forehead while you're at it?" the swordsman yelled in response.

"Listen, moss-head, I'm not about to take orders from you!"

_BONK!_

Maria blinked in confused surprise when the orange-haired girl whacked both Sanji and the swordsman over the head with her fists.

"Boys, not now!" the girl snarled, glaring at the two of them. Then she gave a sigh and shook her head before turning her attention to Maria. "My name's Nami."

"Uh...okay. Are you the first mate or something?"

Luffy laughed. "No, she's the navigator! And Zoro's the swordsman, Chopper's the doctor, and Sanji's the cook." He motioned to each member of the crew in turn. "We have a historian, too - her name's Robin. And-" The black-haired teenager paused, blinking for a moment, then shook his head. "And that's everybody."

Maria's blue eyes blinked in confusion, and she looked around the room at the others. None of them looked like they wanted to meet her gaze.

"I'm getting the feeling that I came here at a bad time," Maria murmured apologetically. "This has got something to do with that duel earlier, doesn't it?"

Luffy pulled his hat further down over his face. "You saw that?"

"I'm someone who doesn't remember anything about how the world works, s-so of course I was curious." Maria rubbed the back of her head somewhat nervously. "I can honestly say that I was surprised when I saw your arms stretch like that. How can you do that?"

The black-haired captain perked up almost instantly; Maria was surprised at how a simple change in subject could cause such a shift in his personality.

"I ate a Devil Fruit!" Luffy explained. "And now I'm a rubber man." He hooked a finger in his mouth and stretched out one of his cheeks, revealing perfectly straight teeth. "See?"

Maria's eyes widened while Luffy's cheek snapped back and the pirate teen gave a giddy grin. "Whoa..." A grin came over Maria's own face. "That's so cool! That must help a lot with everything that you guys have done!"

Luffy laughed through his grin at Maria's reaction, while the other crew members looked somewhat dumbfounded at the amnesiac's statement.

Chopper blinked for a moment, then smiled quietly. "Luffy's not the only one with Devil Fruit powers."

Maria looked up at the muscular doctor. "He isn't?"

Chopper shook his head, then abruptly _shrank_ to a small figure with hooves for hands and feet, and antlers sticking out of either side of his pink top hat.

Maria's eyes widened upon seeing the new form the doctor had taken. "Is this your natural form? Because now the fur is looking much more natural. It's almost like..." Maria paused for a moment, frowning at the antlers on Chopper's head. "...It's almost like you're a deer of some kind."

Chopper's eyes widened in surprise. "You can tell I'm a reindeer?"

"Well, the antlers kinda gave you away. But, other than that..." Maria shrugged. "So, what Devil Fruit did you eat?"

"The Human Human fruit." Chopper smiled slightly and rubbed the back of his head. Maria thought he seemed pleased that someone was taking such an interest in him and his abilities.

"Human Human?" Maria blinked, then smiled herself. "That's serendipitous."

"Huh?" Chopper frowned. "What do you mean?"

"If a human had found that fruit, it wouldn't have done them any good. Since you found it, you can use it in order to be a doctor that people can understand - and you can use human tools without worrying about holding them in your hooves in your natural form." Maria smiled, glad to have gotten that statement out.

Chopper reaction was certainly unexpected by the amnesiac. It was as though his entire body had turned into a noodle that was wiggling almost constantly, while the little reindeer exclaimed, "Aw, that won't make me happy, you dumbass!"

Maria became a little taken aback by this, and Nami, taking note of her reaction, came over and explained, "He always does that when he's happy. You get used to it."

Maria looked over at the orange-haired navigator for a moment, blinking in slight confusion before giving a hesitant expression. "If you say so."

"So, what exactly have you remembered so far?" Nami pressed. "If you've been here for a week, you might have been able to get at least _something_ back."

"Well, I have," Maria admitted, rubbing her left arm with her right hand somewhat nervously. Talking about memory recovery with people that she knew yet didn't know felt so strange! "It isn't all that much, though - at least, I don't _feel_ like it is. From what I know right now, I've been to a land before that was completely populated by strange creatures that had all these different abilities - and they were _born_ with them, too! No Devil Fruits or anything." A frown flitted over her face for a moment. "In fact, I think I'm friends with a few of them."

"That sounds so COOL!" Luffy suddenly burst out, surprising Maria when he threw his fists into the air, grinning like an idiot. "I wanna go see those things!"

"That's kind of the problem, though," Maria spoke up quickly. "I've been hanging around the docks for the past few days in order to see if anyone coming for repairs knows me and my past. Whenever I brought up something involving a recent recovered memory, everybody just looked at me like I was crazy or something."

Luffy lowered his hands and frowned, blinking a few times upon hearing Maria's statement. "It's gotta exist, though. Like Sky Island."

"Sky Island?" The amnesiac was confused. "Where's that?"

"It's an island, but it's up in the sky!" Chopper exclaimed, waving his hooves hands in the air excitedly.

"An island _in_ the sky?" Maria's eyes widened in amazement while, at the same time, a quick flash of something went through the back of her mind: a chunk of rock without anything holding it up from below, and a strange shrine with a large, bright green gem. It didn't have the familiar feel of a memory...until she saw the red, porcupine-like animal in front of the green gem, that is.

"Is there anything holding it up?" Maria asked.

"Only the clouds," Nami responded.

"Shishishishishishishi!" Luffy laughed through his teeth again. "That place was so cool! We had to fly in order to get up there!"

"R-really?" A grin split Maria's own face. "That sounds so cool! What else have you guys done?"

That questions jump-started a long line of stories from the Straw Hat pirates, detailing their escapades up in the sky with a man made of lightning and working their way backwards from there to the beginning of the Grand Line, detailing their adventure against a man who could turn into sand. Occasionally, one crew member speaking would pause upon reaching a point when they almost mentioned something - or someone - that they didn't like, but then another crew member quickly took over by completely skipping over the fight, conversation, or event that they didn't to talk about.

By the time they were done, however, Maria was so immersed in what had happened to the pirates that she didn't even notice the purposeful skips that had been made by the storytellers.

"Wow!" Maria exclaimed, grinning in such a way that rivaled Luffy's own. "You guys have had some awesome adventures! I hope that my memories will come back with adventures just as awesome as yours!"

"Shishishishishishishi!" Luffy was clearly delighted by Maria's praise, while the other members of the crew present looked at the amnesiac as though she was insane. "Yeah! And then you can tell us about what you remember!"

"Definitely," Maria agreed. She was about to say something else, but then a yawn interrupted her and slipped through her lips.

"It's getting late," Sanji agreed, nodding as Maria finished yawning. "Nami-swan and Maria-san should get their beauty sleep."

Maria looked at the cook in surprise upon hearing the extra syllable added to her name while Zoro sent Sanji a glowering glare.

Nami gave a nod. "Thank you, Sanji. There should be enough room for all of us to sleep, even with Maria here with us. Come on." She grabbed Maria's arm and led her towards the beds while the boys scattered in different directions.

"Thanks for giving me a place to stay for now," Maria stated as she and Nami arrived in the bedroom area of the rented out hotel room.

"No problem," Nami replied brightly. There was a strange light in her eyes that Maria didn't exactly feel too sure about. "Besides, someone's probably out looking for you - maybe they even have an award set out for whoever brings you back!"

"What she _means_ to say is that we're more than willing to help for _free_," Zoro stated in a gruff, annoyed tone as he sent Nami a glare.

Nami glared back and raised a fist. "What was that?"

"You don't have to do everything for money," the swordsman continued, glaring at the orange-haired teen.

"Yeah," Luffy agreed. "Like with Alabasta."

_BONG!_

Nami's fists slammed into the two teens' heads, leaving large bumps that comically swelled up.

"...Well, I don't know about money, but I'm sure that my friends would be willing to repay you in any way they could," Maria commented, appearing somewhat nervous upon seeing Nami's angry beatdown.

Nami gave Maria a brightened smile as soon as the words were out of the girl's mouth, but she looked a little greedy in the process. "Good! Now, get to sleep! We've got to make sure you're in good condition when we find your friends!" The navigator pushed Maria towards one of the beds, and Maria stumbled for a moment before finding her balance again.

"Okay, okay!" Maria yelped, laughing. "I really need to rest, anyway." She clambered underneath the covers of the bed she had been pushed towards - without even taking off her shoes - and snuggled close against the blankets. Even though the lights in the room were still on, Maria managed to somehow fall into a deep sleep in seconds.

**Change in POV**

The crew watched Maria fall asleep for a moment before they turned and exchanged glances with each other.

"You saw how Maria flinched before she mentioned those strange creatures, right?" Sanji asked, sounding concerned. "Do you think recovering memories causes her pain somehow?"

"It's likely," Chopper admitted. "But I won't know for sure until I give Maria a check-up. She seems healthy for someone with memory loss, but there could be wounds that she's hiding that even she doesn't know much about - maybe she was hit on the head and what she _claims_ to be a memory - that storm she mentioned - could be just a dream that she subconsciously made up in place of the real memory. It could be possible that she's actually lying in order to go somewhere that she needs to go and can't otherwise."

"Well, we won't know until she explains herself," Zoro remarked gruffly. He walked over to the closed door of their room and sat down cross-legged, then leaned his back against it and crossed his arms over his chest. "Something tells me she's telling the truth, though."

"About what?" Luffy asked while Sanji stared at the green-haired swordsman in surprise.

"The memory loss thing. We've caused enough trouble to get to be known worldwide by now, and she didn't look one bit scared when she followed us here." Zoro folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes. "If she'd known, she wouldn't have even set foot back into the city and probably would have stuck with Usopp instead."

Sanji blinked for a moment, then gave a nod. "Moss-head's right," he noted. "If Maria didn't have memory loss, she'd probably try to stay away from us as much as possible. Well, from Luffy, Zoro, and Robin, any rate, since the rest of us don't have bounties yet."

"And I doubt you're going to get one, Dartbrow." Zoro didn't even bother to open his eyes to look up at the cook as he spoke.

Sanji gritted his teeth and was about to issue a retort when Nami got in front of him and waved her fist threateningly.

The blond cook looked away with a snort. "Whatever. It's late. If I'm going to find Robin tomorrow and tell her about what happened, I'm going to need to get my rest." He turned and walked over to a bed on the other side of the room and climbed in without another word. Nami quickly followed suit, choosing a bed near Maria to climb into.

Luffy remained sitting cross-legged on his bed for a moment, looking around the room at the figures lying under the covers. A cheeky grin crossed his face, and one arm stretched over to the nearest light switch, which he promptly flipped, sending the entire room into darkness seconds before he climbed under the covers himself.

**I hope that the way I did this chapter is all right...considering that I want to make sure that I got the Straw Hats right and all. I like the way it went, though.**

**See you next time!**


	6. A Not-So-Sunny-Morning

**Hi!**

**Thanks NerdyBirdy33, SerahFalcon, Nycel, amazon Pen, Tai-Ookami, and seanstergamefan for the Favorites and Follows!**

**Guest - I'm glad you're enjoying it! I'm staying close to the anime plot so far, though, so you're more praising Oda than anybody else. I'm glad you like what I'm doing at least, though.**

**Maria: She's decent.**

**Oi! When did you get here?**

**Maria: Just wanted to see what you were doing so far. It looks like you're doing pretty good so far. See you later. *poof***

**Okay...that hasn't happened before.**

**Well, anyway, here's the chapter!**

**Chapter 6 - Not-A-Quite-So-Sunny-Morning**

**Dream Break**

_"Waah!" Maria skidded back from the boulder-like creature that was throwing rocks at her. Already, her back and shoulders were sore from getting hit by them, and it hurt even more than she had expected them to. After all, they were just rocks, right?_

_There came a groan from the girl's right, and she turned her head in order to see who had spoken. Her eyes locked with experienced, brown orbs, the rest of the creature's face hidden under a bone-like mask that covered his entire face._

_"Not only do you have amnesia, you know nothing of Pokemon Types!" the creature exclaimed. "Your partner never informed me that his friend was so incompetent!"_

_"Excuse me?" Maria bristled. "Like you might have fared any better against the whatever-it-was that hit me!"_

_"How do you know you were hit?"_

_"I woke up with a headache on the beach, that's why!" Maria glared over at the boulder-creature, then her vision became slightly distorted as she slipped around to one side of it and rammed into it, sending the boulder flying a short distance before collapsing, swirls replacing his eyes. The girl looked back at the masked creature. "I may remember something of Pokemon Types if you refresh me a little bit, though, Marowak."_

_The creature - now named - let out another huffing noise before consenting. "Pokemon are separated into different leagues of power, depending on what element they are born with circulating through their veins. For instance, you as a Vulpix have the power of Fire."_

_Maria glanced behind her and twitched six red tails before looking back at Marowak. "I gathered that much from when we went into the Drenched Bluffs."_

_"Which is good enough for me. There are a total of seventeen known Types in the Exploration Guilds in this area, and each Types has their own strengths against other Types, as well as their weaknesses." Marowak pointed a bone at Maria. "You as a Fire-Type are weak to Water, Rock, and Ground-Types, and are strong against Grass and Bug-Types. Anything else is still suitably damaged, but you may want to learn more than just Fire attacks if you're going to continue entering dungeons that don't like Fire-Types too much."_

_Maria gave a nod. "I've got Faint Attack right now, and that's more than enough."_

_"Yes, for now. But you're going to need to learn other kinds of attacks in order to take on stronger opponents who may know something of your Faint Attack ability. I suggest taking advantage of Throwing items whenever you get the chance, lest you run out of energy for that particular move."_

_"All right. Thanks, Marowak!"_

**Dream Break**

Maria awoke, somehow breathless and excited from what she had seen during the night. _No visions! I'm sure of it! All of what happened last night...I can remember all of it! And all of it - every last instant - was from my memories! And such strange ones!_

"Well, look who's up."

Maria turned her head, and blinked for a moment before smiling lightly at seeing the Straw Hat Pirates already up and sitting around in various corners of the hotel room: Nami by the tangerine trees, Zoro by a large pile of weights that Maria doubted _anyone_ would be able to lift, Sanji in the kitchen, and Chopper and Luffy next to each other on Luffy's bed, the little doctor watching Maria while Luffy was drooling all over the bed covers watching Sanji.

"You were fidgeting in bed for a minute there," Sanji commented, shifting a frying pan on the stove. Maria was sure that she could smell eggs and bacon in the hotel room, and it was making her stomach react - minus the noises.

Maria chuckled slightly. "That's probably because I was getting memories back. And I remembered a lot last night, too."

"Any clue as to who you are?" Chopper asked eagerly.

Maria shook her head. "No, not yet." A frown flitted over her face. "But it was kind of weird...I mean, I _was_ one of the creatures in that memory. I don't know how that happened, though...but I'm getting the feeling that I'm not actually _supposed_ to be one of them." She looked down at her hands and clenched and unclenched them for a moment before looking back up at the pirates and offering an apologetic smile. "Sorry if that confused you - I mean, it's still confusing to me."

"So long as you're getting a grasp on something, it's fine," Sanji replied coolly. He turned his attention to his frying pan for a moment longer before flipping its contents - an omelette that looked like it was stuffed with bacon and different vegetables - onto a plate that he'd managed to pull seemingly out of nowhere.

Zoro huffed and rolled his eyes at the blond cook, but he didn't move from his spot next to the weights.

"Here, Maria." Sanji sashayed over to Maria's bed and handed her the omelette, a fork and a knife stuck underneath it. "You're going to need a good breakfast in order to wake you up properly."

Maria blinked at the omelette for a moment, then up at the cook. Her stomach was _screaming_ for food - something it hadn't done _at all_ during the last week - and something told her that being presented with the opportunity to _actually_ eat was the reason why.

A smile graced the teen's face, and she eagerly accepted the offered food before digging into the omelette. The amnesiac didn't even bother to stop when Sanji came back over with a glass of what looked like some sort of fruit juice; she finished off the omelette with a flourish before glugging down the drink.

The pirates looked at Maria in complete and utter bewilderment. Maria thought that she heard one of the boys say, "She eats almost as fast as Luffy does!"

Maria wiped off her mouth using an orange jacket sleeve before licking her lips in case anything had been left behind. A huge grin came over her face. "That was delicious! I've never tasted food that good before!"

"You're sure?" Sanji asked. There was an excited glint in his eyes as Maria nodded vigorously.

"Do you cook food this good all the time?" Maria asked.

"But of course! Why wouldn't I?"

The amnesiac wondered if Sanji's one visible eye had turned into a gigantic heart, but she shrugged it off as a trick of the light. So she simply grinned, starting to feel energetic from the breakfast. "You're an awesome cook!"

Sanji practically _melted_. Maria watched with a bemused expression as the cook collapsed to the floor, his limbs turning into noodles. As soon as the blond cook had fully collapsed, however, the blue-eyed amnesiac burst out into laughter.

The other members of the crew looked at each other for a moment before bursting out into laughter themselves. The sound of the the others laughing got Sanji to his feet faster than Maria had expected, but the actions he took after that got to be even more interesting.

Because the cook made a beeline straight for Zoro and aimed a kick at his head.

The green-haired swordsman moved his head to the left, avoiding Sanji's foot by mere centimeters. The teen's laughter stopped short, and Zoro started to reach for the swords at his side, a dangerous glare coming over his face.

"You think I'm funny, moss-head?" Sanji growled, glaring down at Zoro.

"Yeah. Because you're always falling over yourself,_ love cook_," Zoro sneered. He elbowed Sanji's leg away from his face and got to his feet, pulling two of his three swords out of their sheaths in the process.

Seconds later, the blades started flying while Sanji's leg lashed out, both teens attempting to hit the other while somehow managing to stay in the same spot and not do any damage to the hotel room.

Maria watched the blades and kicks fly with wide eyes, looking between the looks of concentration that were on the two boys' faces, as well as taking note of their stances: Zoro with one foot behind the other, shoulder-length apart, leaning forward a little as he struck with his swords, and Sanji, balancing easily on one foot while his hands were in the pockets of his pants. It was incredible that the cook was able to counter the swords with his shoe, much less stay upright from the force that Zoro put behind his attacks!

Luffy started laughing at the two's antics, as though it was something that he saw simply as entertainment. Chopper looked nervous, and Nami was just downright annoyed.

"Sanji, Zoro, stop!" the orange-haired girl barked. "Now's not the time for this! You can do it when we get a new ship and find Robin!"

The two boys paused and looked over at Nami, Zoro looking downright annoyed while Sanji suddenly gained a lovey-dovey expression. Maria was surprised to find that the heart she had seen replacing his eye before was definitely _not_ a trick of the light.

The expression that came over Luffy's face, however, did not go unnoticed by the amnesiac: the grin that had been on his face faded away pretty quickly, and the pirate captain suddenly gained a sullen expression that clearly said that he was thinking about something that he would rather forget.

"Of course, Nami-swan!" Sanji exclaimed, moving away from Zoro with legs that looked like they were made of spaghetti. "I'll get on it right away!"

"Thank you, Sanji," Nami stated, relieved.

"Tch." Zoro put his swords away and crossed his arms over his chest in an annoyed manner. "Yeah, sure, send him to go find her. He's probably got a better nose than Chopper if he's going to find Robin."

"And what are you going to do, moss-head?" Sanji asked, his voice not so lovey-dovey now that he was talking to the swordsman.

Zoro jabbed a thumb in the direction of the weights. "I'm going to train."

Maria's eyes widened slightly in awe. _Those weights are Zoro's?_

"You must be pretty strong already in order to lift those," Maria commented. She slipped out from under the covers of her bed and crossed her legs. "Are the swords just as heavy?"

"No. They're just like any other sword. I train so that I can give more damage." Zoro turned towards the door and opened it. "I'm going up to the roof." With that, he walked out and shut the door behind him.

"I'm heading out, too," Sanji commented. "I can't just let Robin stay lost. Who knows what trouble she's managed to get herself into?" He quickly dashed for the door and disappeared, calling, "Wait for me, Robin-chwan!"

As soon as Sanji had disappeared out the door, Luffy got to his feet and left the hotel room abruptly - not even bothering to look back at Chopper, who scrambled out after him, or Nami and Maria, who watched the two leave with concerned or befuddled expressions.

Nami let out a sigh and shook her head. "I'd better get going, too. That explosion last night could have gotten some people's attention, and there could be bad rumors going around, too, considering what Luffy, Sanji, Zoro, and Chopper did to the Franky House yesterday."

"Franky House?" Maria repeated, blinking. A frown flitted over her face. "That sounds kind of familiar for some reason..."

"It's the base of the Franky Family," Nami explained. "Or, it was. Luffy and the others completely destroyed it."

"They did? Really?" Surprise crossed Maria's face. "Wow. They must be _really_ strong then."

"Yeah. I guess they are." A slight smile came across Nami's face for a moment, but that soon disappeared. "Are you going to be okay in here by yourself? Or are you planning on doing anything?"

"Well, I normally go down to the docks every day to see if there's anyone there that knows me." Maria gave a one-shouldered shrug. "But I'm not really sure if I want to do that or not. Paulie would be worried if I don't, but I trust you guys because of the visions I've gotten. Besides, being with you guys got me more memories back in one night than I've received for the last week, and I don't exactly feel like moving from this bed."

"Well, do what you want, but make sure that you remember where the hotel is, okay? This is going to be where we're staying for now, since we don't...have a ship."

"Yeah, sure. No problem." Maria gave a quick nod. "Don't worry; I'm good with directions."

The orange-haired navigator gave the brown-haired amnesiac a slight smile, then turned and stepped out of the hotel room without another word. This left the blue-eyed teen sitting on the bed alone, a small smile on her face and nothing particularly to do.

It really seem didn't take too long to the teen before the smile shifted into a frown, and Maria let out a sigh of boredom.

"Being on an actual bed is nice and all, but I probably should go and do something...Paulie's expecting me back at the docks. I'd better go and make sure that he knows I'm all right." With that, Maria uncrossed her legs and slid off the bed, adding to herself, "I should probably let him know that I've found people who might be able to help me, even though we don't really know each other."

The amnesiac slipped out of the hotel room and moved quickly downstairs to the lobby before walking out of the hotel. Now that she was actually staying there with the Straw Hat pirates rather than sneaking around like some criminal, she wasn't too worried about being seen by the hotel staff.

Not that she really _should_ have been worried, Maria considered as an afterthought.

Outside, the sun actually had only just cleared the horizon, surprising Maria. Normally, she slept in until the sun was already high in the sky, but not even high enough to consider it to be noon.

"The memory must have woken me up," Maria noted, frowning slightly. "It's strange, though...I don't even feel tired right now - it's almost like my body's actually used to being up this early..." The amnesiac shook her head. "I don't need to think about that now. I've got to find Paulie and get to the docks to let him know that I'm all right."

Her gaze went around the area, and she caught sight of the same yellow yagara that Usopp had used the night before - the pirates must have gotten him from the rental shop when they came into the city and didn't even realize who had last used it. The amnesiac shifted her orange jacket a little, then calmly walked over to the yagara and got down into a crouch in front of the sea creature.

"Hi," Maria stated softly. "Do you remember me from last night?"

"Niiii," the yagara replied, nodding its head.

"Do you mind giving me a ride? I have to get down to the shipwright docks in order to meet somebody. I'd probably be able to swim there, but my friend may be worried about me if I don't get there sooner."

The yagara neighed again, and Maria untied the yellow beastie before getting into the boat on its back. Seconds later, the two were moving off through the canals towards the water elevator and the Docks. Thanks to the yagara's speed, they managed to reach the area in minutes...only to discover that something was wrong.

"What's going on here?" Maria muttered, frowning when she saw the crowd gathered in front of the closed Dock 1 doors. "I don't hear any sort of brawl going on right now...and there isn't anyone cheering on their favorite foremen, either..." Her grip on the yagara's reins tightened. "I hope nothing bad's happened in there."

The yagara neighed in a concerned tone, as well.

"Come on. Let's go ask somebody what's happened." Maria gave a the yagara a slight, encouraging smile, and the yellow sea creature complied, moving close to the sidewalk next to the Dock 1 entrance and the crowd.

"Excuse me," Maria called, from her seat. "Can someone tell me what's going on?"

A man turned and looked back at Maria before surprise graced his features. "Oh, hey! You're that amnesiac that's been hanging around the area! Where'd you get the yagara?"

"It's kind of on loan at the moment," Maria replied quickly, wanting to get to more pressing matters. "Please, could you tell me what's going on?"

"You mean you haven't heard the news?" The man blinked a few times. "You normally sleep around here, don't you?"

"The foreman made me move, so I found a different place to sleep last night. I pretty much only just got up."

The man gave a slight nod. "Smart on their part. I wish they'd had that much thought concerning what happened last night."

"What do you mean? What happened?" Maria's grip tightened on the reins even more. "Did something happen at the Docks?"

"No - it was way worse than that. The Galley-La Company building was invaded last night. Iceberg was shot."

_Galley-La...that's the name of the group that all the shipwrights are a part of! And Iceberg..._

Maria's eyes widened as she recalled the man with the dark blue hair who had been at Dock 1 the day before with Luffy and Nami. "Oh, no! Is he all right?"

"From what I know, he's still alive, but it's going to be a while before he's on his feet again. The problem is who did it."

Maria frowned in confusion at the man's statement. "Why? Is it that hard in order to hunt them down?"

"Nobody knows who it is." The man shrugged.

"I think it was Franky," stated a woman standing nearby, turning around to join in on the conversation. "This is what we get for letting someone like him roam free around here."

"Franky?" Maria blinked in confusion.

"He's the leader of the Franky Family - their ringleader." The woman scoffed with disgust. "He's been causing trouble in this city for who knows how long, and it was only a matter of time before he decided to do something this drastic."

"But...I was told that they only go after pirates." Maria's eyebrows knit themselves together into a look of concerned confusion as she thought back to what she knew already. "Why would they go after Iceberg? He's not a pirate, is he?"

"No, he's the mayor! Of course he isn't a pirate!" The man gave a hollow laugh, but stopped it when the woman next to him gave him a glare. A slightly concerned expression appeared on his face. "But the Franky Family is always going after people with big bounties on their heads - apparently, they're going after the Beris for some reason. They could have wanted to go into Iceberg's safe and get some of his, but they wouldn't need to go to his room in order to do that, I don't think."

"He may have known the combination and didn't tell them," the woman offered.

"But...wouldn't it be possible to discover the combination _without_ going to the mayor?"

Maria was starting to get the feeling that the man and the woman were going to be of even less help with Iceberg's shooting than the number of holes in her memory, so she decided to ask something else.

"Any idea where Paulie is?" Maria asked, interrupting the man before he could speak again.

The man paused, his mouth open for a moment before he closed it and frown in thought. "The foremen might be in the docks, but everything's been closed off because of last night. They're not letting anybody in - and it doesn't look like there's any work going on, either."

"OK...so I guess I'll have to wait to talk to Paulie until later." Maria frowned out of concern, reaching up with her left hand to pull on the bill of her red and orange baseball cap. "And you're sure that nobody knows anything about what happened last night?"

"Well, some people have their suspicions, I guess, but I really think it's got to be the Franky Family." The man looked at the woman, who nodded in agreement. "I mean, there was the news that the Franky House was completely destroyed yesterday, and then there was that explosion last night, so they _have_ to be up to something."

"Still, something doesn't feel right..." Maria crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't like this. It feels like something bad is going to be on the horizon, but...I'm not exactly sure what."

The amnesiac bit her lower lip to prevent herself from saying anything else. No one had to know why the explosion happened last night, considering that it was a private event among the Straw Hat pirates that needed to be dealt with. As for the Franky House...she wasn't sure as to why Luffy and the others had decided to attack it and destroy it yesterday, but something in her gut told her that it was because of Usopp somehow.

"Well, you can keep your thoughts of that to yourself, I guess," the man stated calmly. "You'll probably hear more about what's going on later, but I'd suggest that you get moving."

"Huh?" Maria looked up at the man in confusion. "Why?"

"There's a lot of strange things going on lately, and who knows where those attackers are from last night. They could have been the pirates who made you lose your memory for all you know."

Maria stiffened a little in her seat on the yagara, and she could feel some of the blood drain from her face as a strange noise that sounded like a laugh echoed at the back of her mind, accompanied closely by the sound of rumbling thunder and the sea's shifting waves. A shudder ran down her spine a second later.

"Yeah, you may be right," Maria commented nervously. The blue-eyed amnesiac was pretty sure that it hadn't been pirates who had decided to attack her - wherever she had been - and caused her to gain memory loss, but there was something about the man's words that made her think that she actually might _not_ be as safe in Water 7 as she had once thought...

"I'm going to get going, then, and keep my ears open," Maria finally stated. She gripped the reins of the yellow yagara and, after giving a nod to the man and the woman she had been conversing with, the amnesiac got the sea creature moving back the way they had come.

As the yagara swam through the canals, Maria worriedly thought back to what had happened the day before in the docks - and how Iceberg had interacted with Luffy and Nami. The man did seem to be a little stiff, even though he _clearly_ didn't like government people, but the man had also been kind enough to help them when it came to their ship...even though they weren't going to be able to use the _Merry_ anymore...

Maria shook the thought out of her mind. She didn't have time to think about that right now. If Iceberg was considered a friend to Luffy, then she had to go and warn him about what had happened. Zoro and Chopper, too, since Nami and Sanji were out in the city and probably had heard from the locals already.

"Come on," Maria murmured urgently to the yagara. "We have to get back to the hotel and warn the others about what's happened!"

**Yikes. Waking up to hear about that. You guys probably know what's going to happen next, so I'm not going to say anything about what's coming next. ;) That's going to have to wait until next week!**

**See ya!**


	7. The Straw Hats Were Framed!

**Hi again!**

**Thanks to Cyannel, almakarma18, and Music of Madness for the Favs and Follows!**

**Cyannel - I loved the mystery dungeon games, too. :) I've got Explorers of the Sky to mess around with. I'm glad you're okay with what I'm doing so far, and I hope that you keep loving it!**

**Music - I'm going to update ever single week, so don't worry about when "soon" is for my update schedule. ;) I'm glad you noticed the Pokemon and Sonic hints there. If you're wondering about those other stories, check my profile. And I most certainly will keep up the good work!**

**Chapter 7 - The Straw Hats Were Framed!**

When Maria arrived back at the hotel, she leapt off the yagara's boat, hurriedly tied him to a post - while thanking him for the quickly ride from the docks to the hotel - then dashed inside and ran up the stairs towards the roof. She knew that Zoro, at least, was going to be up there, and he might know where Luffy and Chopper went to after they left.

At least, the blue-eyed amnesiac _hoped_ he would have an idea. And even if he didn't, Maria had to tell _somebody_ who was a part of the crew.

It didn't take the amnesiac to scramble up the stairs at breakneck speed and reached the door that led to the roof. She nearly slammed into it were it not for the fact that it was already open, causing Maria to stumble out onto the rooftop.

"...heard he's still unconscious," Nami was saying, standing on the opposite end of the roof. It looked like she was talking to someone; Maria caught sight of a figure sitting hunched over on a rooftop nearby with a straw hat perched on top of his head.

Sanji turned and caught sight of Maria standing in front of the entrance to the lower levels, panting heavily from scrambling up the flights of stairs to the roof. "Hey, Maria. Where have you been?"

"I went down to the docks to see if I could find Paulie," Maria replied, her breathing calming down as her heart rate slowed. "The docks are completely closed down, and no one's seen the foremen. I heard that Iceberg was shot last night while I was there."

"Yeah. Nami just told us." Sanji had a grim look on his face that made Maria wonder if he had any luck finding their missing crew mate, Robin. "I heard something about it when I was going through town looking for Robin. Who is Iceberg, anyway?"

"He's the nice man who helped us out so much yesterday," Nami replied, turning her attention from Luffy to the crew's cook. "He's the president of the ship-building company, Galley-La, as well as the mayor of Water 7."

Sanji let out a hum out of interest. "Sounds like an important guy."

"Yeah," Nami agreed. "It's pretty much the worst thing that could have happened to this town..."

Something shifted on the rooftop behind Nami, and Maria's gaze moved upward, only for her to catch sight of Luffy getting to his feet.

"I'll go check on him," the pirate captain called out. With that, he jumped off the building he was sitting on and landed on the sidewalk below.

Nami ran over to the balcony and called down to him, "Wait up, Luffy! I'm coming with you!" With that, the orange-haired navigator turned and dashed back down the stairs.

"Well, on that note, let's go look for Robin," Sanji suggested. "Come on, Chopper." He started walking towards the door himself, but then stopped and looked over at Zoro, who had been sitting on the ground with his legs crossed and his arms folded over his chest. "What about you?"

"Well, I think I'll just wait a while," Zoro replied. He leaned back against the pillar-like construct behind him and out his hands behind his head while looking out over the city. "See how things turn out."

Sanji looked down at Zoro for a moment, then turned and walked away without another word, his hands in the pockets of his pants. This left Maria standing alone with the swordsman on the roof of the hotel.

The amnesiac bit her lower lip as she considered her options: follow Sanji to find the missing crew member, follow Nami and Luffy to check in on Iceberg, or stay here in the hotel with Zoro until one of the two groups comes back with news.

_Well, if I'm going to get to know the crew from my visions a little better, then I may as well start now,_ Maria finally decided. Besides, while the crew did explain some of their adventures, they didn't really go into their _own_ quirks or how exactly it was that they came to join the crew...or anything much at all, really.

Maria moved away from the still-open door and sat down cross-legged in front of Zoro, clasping onto her ankles with her hands and rocking back and forth for a moment before stopping her movement.

Zoro glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow in a somewhat curious manner. "You're still here?"

"I would have gone out to look for Paulie, but the docks are closed off, so I can't exactly go in to see if he's there," Maria responded, her expression remaining somewhat blank. "And I don't really know Iceberg, so there wouldn't be much of a point in going to check on him, and I don't know what your crew member Robin looks like, either, so there really isn't anything that I can do right now."

"So you're just going to sit here and wait, huh?"

"It's not like I have anything better to do." Maria shrugged. "I'm going to have to sit out for a while before going back into the city, I guess." She let out a sigh. "Not really like I know of anything else that I could do."

Zoro eyed the strange girl, causing Maria to wonder if the green-haired swordsman was considering either ignoring her or doing something else with his time. Like training using the weights that were down in the hotel room. Or maybe actually leaving the hotel in order to do something on his own.

The amnesiac's own gaze moved down to the three swords that were sheathed and slid through the green stomach band that went around his waist. A strange question flitted through the back of her mind.

"Do you use _all_ three of those swords at once?" Maria asked, returning her gaze to Zoro's face.

"What's it to you?" the swordsman responded.

"I'm just curious." Maria shrugged. "Do you?"

Zoro shrugged. "Sometimes." He brought his arms from around the back of his head and placed his hands on his knees. "Depends on how strong my opponent is."

"Really?" Maria's eyes widened slightly. "How do you manage to hold three swords at once?"

Zoro gave a slightly smirk that gave him a knowing expression that bordered on the mischievous and the sinister. "In my teeth."

"Really? You're jaw's gotta be really strong in order to be able to handle something like that in the middle of a fight." Maria's blue orbs sparkled with awe and amazement at the swordsman's ability. "You guys are really incredible, you know that, right?"

Zoro's smirk widened slightly. "Heh. I guess we are." The smirk faded a little. "You know, most people take one look at us and either think they can take us on or run and hide their heads in the dirt."

Maria blinked for a moment, then cocked her head to one side. "Is it because you're pirates? I mean, you guys did a lot of good things for people all over the place."

"Eh, well...a lot of people don't see those and just stop listening after hearing 'pirate'. The Marines' doing, probably."

"Do the Marines really hate you that badly?" Maria frowned. "Have some of them gotten to know you guys?"

Zoro snorted. "All they think about is hunting us down. They probably don't see us as anything much different from other pirates, what with the bounties on our heads."

"Bounties? You have bounties?" Maria blinked a couple times. "That's usually only if you're considered a bad guy, right?"

"Sheesh, you really _don't_ know anything, do you?"

A frown came over Maria's face. "Well, I have amnesia, what do you expect?" An eager shine came into her eyes seconds later. "You guys mentioned that you had bounties last night, though. How big are they?"

"It's only Luffy, Robin, and me," Zoro stated. "That stupid love cook didn't even managed to get one in Alabasta, when I did." A grin came over his face. "I've got 60 million, Robin has 79 million, and Luffy's got 100 million."

"Wow...that's a lot of cash on your heads." A frown flickered over Maria's face. "You said that you got your bounty in Alabasta, Luffy got his _started_ back in the East Blue, but...where and when did Robin get hers?"

Zoro shrugged. "She hasn't said, but there are rumors."

Maria's blue eyes blinked in confusion. "Rumors?"

"Yeah. Robin said that she got her bounty when she was eight, and it hasn't changed ever since. The government's been looking for her ever since then, but why is spread around the bounty hunters. Everybody calls her the Demon of Ohara, but no one knows where that is, since it isn't on a _map_, and no one knows why she's called that, either." Zoro shrugged again. "Nico Robin is as much a mystery as her bounty is."

Maria blinked a couple times. She hadn't expected Zoro to spout _that_ about Robin, and much less sound so experienced about it. Or eloquent, for that matter.

Then the rest of his statement hit Maria pretty quickly.

"Wait. How would _you_ know what bounty hunters talk about?" Maria asked, blinking.

Zoro raised an eyebrow. "You haven't heard? Before I joined Luffy, I hunted down pirates for their bounties."

"Y-you did? Then why did you join him?"

Zoro's face darkened. "...that's a story that can wait."

Just then loud siren suddenly rippled thorough the air, causing Maria to stiffen in surprise as a voice soon started to echo throughout the entire city.

**"Your attention, please. This is the Water 7 Forecasting Center. As of now, an Aqua Laguna Severe Weather Warning has just been issued for the entire island. It's arrival time is estimated to between midnight and twelve-thirty."**

Zoro turned his head upon hearing the voice, not even looking surprised upon hearing the loud voice echo through the city. Maria, however, was somewhat shaken out of the suddenness of the short statement.

"Aqua Laguna?" Maria repeated, her eyes wide. "What's that? It sounds like the name of a hurricane or something..."

"Then they would have called it a hurricane warning, wouldn't they?" Zoro pointed out in reply. A frown came over his face. "How would you know about what a hurricane is, anyway?"

Maria blinked for a moment, then shrugged helplessly. "It just popped into my head, that's all. I don't know where it came from."

"Well, I guess that's more of your memory coming back, then." Zoro leaned back again and placed his hands behind his head before closing his eyes. Seconds later, it appeared as though the swordsman had fallen asleep.

Maria sat still for a moment, but then decided to follow Zoro's lead and take a nap herself. She scooted over to a portion of the balcony near Zoro and leaned herself against the stone bars, warmed by the morning sun. After adjusting her red shirt and orange jacket from her movement, Maria yanked down on her red and orange baseball cap and closed her eyes.

**Dream Break**

_Maria looked around the area where she was now standing: a room with a floor that was completely covered in grass, and walls made of dirt and a window with an opening out to a view of a large body of water. There was a smell in the air that made the amnesiac think of the sea._

_"What is this place?" the girl asked quietly. "It seems so...familiar. Almost like a second home."_

_"This is Wigglytuff's Exploration Base."_

_Maria stiffened slightly, then turned in order to look in the direction of the voice that had come from behind her. She looked down in slight surprise upon finding the yellow, mouse-like creature with the bright red cheeks and a thunderbolt-shaped tail._

_"Pika, right?" Maria asked, blinking. "A..." A frown came over her face. "What kind of animal are you, anyway?"_

_"I'm not an animal - I'm a Pokemon. A Pikachu." Pika walked over to Maria on his hind legs and stopped by her feet before looking up at the amnesiac. "You knew that already, though - we met on the beach and came here after you helped me get my treasure back."_

_"Treasure?" Maria blinked in slight confusion before Pika pulled out a strange stone with an intricate pattern carved into the flat surface. It looked strangely familiar._

_"It's the key that let us get up to Temporal Tower," Pika explained, a half-smile gracing his features. "I don't have it anymore, but I still consider it my treasure."_

_Maria hummed absently out of thought, frowning slightly. The word "treasure" echoed around in her mind for a moment, but that soon faded into the background._

_"What are you doing here?" Maria finally asked._

_Pika shrugged. "I'm a figment of your mind. You tell me."_

_"Well, that explains why you sound a little different from the memories I've seen of us so far..." Maria frowned, her blue eyes darkening as she became lost in thought. "But...there's still a lot I don't know. I don't like how helpless I feel because of that."_

_"Don't worry." Pika grinned. "That didn't stop us before."_

_"B-before?"_

_"Yeah. This isn't the first time that you've had amnesia, after all."_

**Dream Break**

Maria cracked her eyes open when she felt herself get shaken vigorously. The blue-eyed amnesiac found herself blinking in confusion as she looked up at Zoro, who seemed tense.

"What's up?" Maria asked, any grumpiness from having her memory recovery interrupted forgotten.

"We're getting out of here," Zoro replied. "Now." He glanced over his shoulder at the door leading to the stairwell, which had some rather angry-looking people coming out of it with pitchforks, hammers, and other everyday items that looked extremely dangerous.

"How?" Maria quickly scrambled to her feet, watching the people behind Zoro.

"We jump."

Before the amnesiac could respond to this, Zoro roped an arm around her waist and jumped from the balcony down onto the sidewalk below, with Maria letting out a short yell of surprise. They were down on the ground in seconds, the swordsman standing on his feet and not looking so much as shaken from the drop.

"You're pretty heavy for someone your size," Zoro commented, dropping Maria unceremoniously to the ground.

Maria let out a grunt as she hit the ground, but managed to somehow scramble to her feet. Her heart rate was going at a mile a minute, but somehow, she had managed to escape the drop unharmed.

"And you are the most reckless guy that...that I can remember at the moment," Maria snapped in reply. "A drop like that could have killed us!"

"It didn't." Zoro didn't bat an eye to Maria's slightly terrified exclamation. "Come on, we should probably keep moving."

"Uh, yeah...sure. But...why were those people coming up on the roof after us? You guys haven't done anything to Water 7, have you?"

"No. But I wouldn't put it past Luffy that _he_ might have done something. Stupid captain." Zoro muttered what sounded like a string of curses under his breath.

"There he is! It's the pirate hunter, and he's kidnapped Maria! Get him!"

Maria stiffened, then turned sharply to glare in the direction that the voice had been coming from - yet _another_ crowd of people rushing towards them. "Kidnapped? I'll have you know that -"

"It's no use trying to reason with them," Zoro interrupted. He grabbed Maria's left arm and forced her to run down the sidewalk after him.

"We won't let you get away with shooting Iceberg!" someone yelled after the duo.

Maria would have stopped out of shock if it wasn't for the fact that Zoro still had a tight grip on her arm.

"_They_ think you guys shot Iceberg last night?" Maria repeated, shocked. "Where did that come from? The people I was speaking to at the docks thought that it was the Franky Family who did it!"

"Those guys can't go two steps without causing a racket," Zoro replied gruffly. "It's got to be a trained assassin."

"An _assassin_? Where did you get _that_ idea?"

"It's the only one that makes sense!" Zoro barked back, glancing over his shoulder at the amnesiac. "We were out on the ship and in the hotel. The Franky Family was probably still licking their wounds. It had to be somebody else."

Maria blinked in befuddlement for a moment, not exactly sure what that would mean. "But...who would go after Iceberg?"

"I dunno. But...something tells me Luffy's going to want to find out."

**Time Break**

Maria let out a growl of annoyance as she looked up and down the alleyway. Just a few minutes ago, she had been following Zoro (who had finally let go of her arm) in order to avoid the angry mobs, but then the swordsman had decided to just up and vanish!

The blue-eyed amnesiac blamed herself for not being able to keep up with the pirate, but she was relieved to find that she wasn't being chased at the moment.

"I've got to find the Straw Hats," Maria muttered, frowning to herself. She turned and walked out of the alleyway and onto the Main Street, looking around at the area. There wasn't very many people around, and those who were around looked like they were ready to jump at anyone who happened to look suspicious, even though they were boarding up their windows and doors with metal plates.

_Maybe they're preparing for Aqua Laguna?_

Maria shook her head to clear out any questions about the storm; she had to find the others, not dilly-dally and wait for something to happen.

_Maybe they're hiding in plain sight? Or...wait - Luffy went to check in on Iceberg! He could be over at Dock 1 right now - or near the main building, at any rate. I'd better go and find him! _

With that thought, Maria turned and took off down the street and dove into a canal, her baseball cap surprisingly managing to stay on her head even when she hit the water and started swimming down the canal. The amnesiac could see that people were sending her strange looks for swimming in her clothes_ in the canal_, but Maria ignored them. She had a crew to find, and she had to find them fast.

The teen scrambled up onto the sidewalk again and started running when yagaras and their riders started to float into view. The amnesiac felt like she was running on adrenaline, and her clothes didn't feel as heavy or wet as they usually did when she came out of the water.

Maria turned a corner and ran down an alley, catching sight of what looked like the shopping district on the other side of the buildings she had been running next to. Not but a few steps into it, however, and she was suddenly hit with a large headache that caused the teen to go down on one knee.

A second later, her vision went dark, and was quickly replaced by Dock 1...but the entire area was completely in shambles, and Luffy was lying in the wreckage. Nearby, there stood a man wearing nothing but a Speedo and a button-up shortsleeve shirt that hung open...as well as the five foremen of Galley-La.

Luffy looked absolutely shocked, then grew angry as he yelled at the foremen.

_"You're wrong! If you knew Robin, there's no way you would say that! So TAKE THAT BACK!"_

Maria's vision quickly cleared, and it left the teen completely confused.

"Another vision?" Maria murmured, frowning. "But...it must have just happened. My other visions have all been from the past - or something along those lines. Since when have I managed to shift from part to present?" The blue-eyed amnesiac shook her head, causing some of her brown hair to shift in front of her face. "I'll think about it later. I've got to find -Gah!"

Maria bent over double a second time as her vision was flooded again with more visions: Iceberg, lying in a bed and covered in bandages, speaking with Luffy.

_"No doubt about it, I saw Nico Robin here last night."_

Maria caught sight of Luffy's shocked face, but then her vision shifted to show a strange, green lizard creature with a leaf growing out of the top of his head. There was a strange, knowing smirk on his face that made Maria wonder if he was friendly...and if she knew him from somewhere.

_"We have to keep moving. In this place, anyone could be an enemy."_

The vision of the strange lizard faded, and Maria felt something twist in her gut. "Grovyle..."

"Maria! Is that you?"

Maria lifted her head and locked eyes with the dark orbs of a familiar figure. "Chopper? Man, am I glad that I found you! We've got to get to the others before the townspeople do - everybody thinks that you guys were the ones who shot Iceberg!" A frown flickered over the girl's face when she saw that the doctor - who was in a natural reindeer form - was alone. "Hey, weren't you with Sanji?"

"Um, yeah...about that..." Chopper looked worried and nervous. "We have to find the others before I can really explain. Your scent was the first one that I managed to catch, so I don't know where the others are yet. And this wind is really starting to pick up speed - Aqua Laguna's gotta be pretty close, now."

Maria blinked a couple times upon hearing the name of the storm again. "Yeah, probably." The blue-eyed amnesiac got to her feet and walked over to the Straw Hat's doctor. "Well, they probably won't be back at the hotel - and if they are, they won't stay there long. A few shipwrights kinda forced Zoro and I to run from there, and then we ended up getting separated. They haven't been chasing me, though - probably because I'm not a part of you guys' crew. The shipwrights at the docks know me already, so they must've thought Zoro kidnapped me instead of me going to you guys willingly."

"This entire city is crazy," Chopper murmured, shaking his head. A moment later, his blue nose started to twitch, and he turned his head down the street. "They're down this way!" The reindeer quickly dashed off, forcing Maria to scramble around the corner in order to follow after him.

"Who's down this way?" Maria asked. "Is it Nami and Luffy?"

"And Zoro!"

"So they all found each other?" A grin appeared on Maria's face. "That's great! Now we won't have to worry about trying to hunt them down all over the city!"

"Yeah, I know!" As Chopper ran, he shifted suddenly from being a four-legged reindeer to being a two-legged muscular man. Maria's eyes widened in amazement at the sudden transformation.

_Alt-mode to bi-pedal,_ echoed a voice at the back of her mind. Before Maria could understand what _that_ meant, the thought was gone.

**Well, we've got problems. The Straw Hats are thought to be the ones who caused Iceberg to be wounded (as it happened in the anime and the manga), but things seem to be slightly different this time around. For one, I think I made Zoro a ****_little_**** smarter than he was in the anime. That swordsman doesn't get all that much screen time for being smart like that, so I figured I'd give him a little help with that. ;)**

**See you guys next week with the next chapter!**


	8. Robin's Betrayal?

**Hi, guys! I'm back again with another chapter. ;)**

**Thanks to Luna-Zeta, 707cloud, seblackburn4, and Cyannel for the Favorites and Follows!**

**Music - I'm glad you think it's cool that I'm a weekly updater. I wrote this thing out over the summer when I was putting up other stuff, so it's simply a matter of getting all the chapters up for now. And Zoro's definitely world-smart rather than book smart.**

**And here's the chapter! Remember, though, guys - I don't own One Piece; just the character who happens to have been thrown into this entire mess.**

**Chapter 8 - Robin's Betrayal?**

Zoro let out a sigh of relief, holding his white sword close in the crook of one arm, while the other two lay along his right leg. "Looks like the crowd cleared out."

Maria, who was sitting cross-legged to the left of the swordsman, nodded in agreement. She looked out over the city from the flat rooftop they had managed to find, relieved that her newfound friends weren't being chased. But...Sanji's absence still worried her. And the still-unknown Robin was missing, as well.

"Yeah, no thanks to you!" Nami barked in reply. "I'll have you know that Luffy and I had a perfectly good hiding spot until you led that mob straight to us!"

"Like I said, with that many people looking, they were going to find you anyway." Zoro sounded somehow bored, like he'd been over this a million times.

"Oh, yeah, that reminds me." Luffy turned his head to look over at Chopper, who was sitting next to the black-haired pirate captain. "How did you know we were down there, Chopper?"

Maria bit down on her lower lip to keep herself from bursting out into laughter again at the memory.

Somehow, Chopper had managed to find the trio dangling under a stone bridge, with Luffy gripping the sides with his hands and his feet and Zoro and Nami sitting on his stomach. The rubber teen had been so surprised at seeing Chopper's face when the doctor bent down to look under that he had let out a yell and released his hold on the bridge, causing himself, Zoro, and Nami to fall into the water. Luckily, Zoro and Nami had managed to get their captain out of the water and gotten the water out of _him_ so that they could get to a safer spot - the rooftop. Maria hadn't been of much help initially - she had burst out into laughter as soon as she had heard Luffy's exclamation of surprise and the loud splash that had followed. It was only later that she realized that Luffy's couldn't exactly swim because of his Devil Fruit ability.

"Your smell," Chopper stated simply. He was back to his small, adorable form that made him look more like a stuffed animal than an actual living, breathing animal.

"Ah, shoulda known. But wait - wasn't Sanji with you?" Luffy gave the reindeer a curious look, obviously expecting an answer.

Chopper lowered his gaze from Luffy's face. "Well, he was."

The little reindeer doctor then launched into an explanation about what had happened and why Sanji wasn't with him. Apparently, the two _had_ managed to run into Robin, but she had told them that she was leaving the crew - and she was leaving the blame for the attempted murder on them while she made her escape. Sanji and Chopper had tried to go after her, but the woman had disappeared. Sanji said he had a plan and went off on his own after that, telling Chopper to go find the others and tell them what had happened.

Maria's eyes widened when she heard what Robin had told the two before disappearing. "She carries a darkness inside her...? What does that mean?"

"No way!" Luffy suddenly burst out, clearly angered. "That doesn't make any sense! Did Robin _really_ say that to you?!"

Chopper gave a slight nod, appearing troubled himself.

Nami didn't move, and for a moment, Maria wondered if they had grabbed statues instead of the real crew members, but then Zoro closed his eyes and shifted one of the swords at his side. "We were prepared for this, weren't we?"

"Hmm?" Maria looked over at Zoro, as did Luffy, Chopper, and Nami.

The swordsman brought down his white sword - still sheathed - and let its end land on the rooftop with the sound of shifting metal. The sword landed between Luffy and Nami.

"After all, Robin _was_ our enemy before we let her join the crew," Zoro added.

Maria stiffened for a moment, but then she remembered what the Straw Hat pirates had told her the night before, when they were telling her about their adventures. The sand kingdom of Alabasta was where they picked up Robin. And she had served as the right-hand woman of the leader of an evil organization called Baroque Works, which had been working towards creating a perfect, utopian society.

The organization had been completely taken down by Luffy when he had defeated the man known as Crocodile, and all the agents had been arrested...except for Robin, who had joined Luffy and the others.

"This might be the only chance to find out the truth, so we shouldn't run away."

Chopper nodded in response to Zoro's statement, while Maria looked over at the green-haired swordsman with an expression of concern and worry.

"There's still a lot of things we don't know about Robin. Now it's time to decide if she's a friend, or a foe." Zoro turned his gaze then from all three of his crew mates to just the reindeer as he pulled his white sword back and let it rest at his side with the others. "Chopper, what Robin said - 'The situation will get worse. From this day forward, we will never see each other again.' You're sure that's what she said?"

Chopper nodded, a determined look coming over his face.

"She says she won't see us after today and that things are going to get worse. Maybe that means that the attack on Iceberg was just a warm-up and she has something even bigger planned for tonight."

Maria looked around the group for a moment, then realized that the sky was starting to gain different shades of color - already, the clouds were a soft orange, which most likely meant that the sun was starting to set. The night was approaching faster than she would have liked...which meant that whatever was going to happen that night was going to take place in a few hours.

The blue-eyed amnesiac swallowed nervously, and she felt a cold gust of wind blow past, prompting her to pull her orange jacket closer and zip it up over her red shirt - as high as the jacket let her.

"I don't know why Robin's doing any of this," Zoro continued as Maria zipped up her jacket, "so it's hard to make a guess as to what she's planning. Seeing how much a commotion her first attack on the mayor caused, there's only one way to make things worse."

"In other words, she'll _murder_ him," Nami stated grimly.

Maria stiffened. Murder...she knew the definition of that word without even having to recover a portion of her memories. To kill without a reason that was right according to the laws of the country...that deserved death in and of itself in some places, didn't it? Was this Robin person really that heartless?

Somehow, "heartless" and "darkness" connected together at the back of her mind to form a strange, black, two-legged imp with antenna on its head and bulbous, yellow eyes that sent chills down Maria's spine.

Robin couldn't look like _that_, could she? The amnesiac hoped that she didn't.

"I think that's what she's _trying_ to tell us, at least," Zoro admitted. "Also, since she told Chopper she's be pinning the crime on _us_, it could be that she's feeding us all these little hints to lure us out to the crime scene tonight."

"Think so?" Chopper questioned somewhat stiffly. Maria took note of the frown that was on the little doctor's face, and wondered was going through that mind of his. Then her gaze moved up, and she saw that Luffy had a similar frown on his face.

"If that _is_ her plan, it would be convenient for her if we _did_ happen to show up, since that would put us at the scene of the crime."

Nami looked either annoyed or angry at the swordsman's statement. "You say you don't know what she's thinking, but it sounds to me like you've already decided that she's our enemy!"

Maria flinched a little at the accusatory tone Nami had taken - _I don't think you want to get hit right now, Zoro_ - but the swordsman didn't even flinch.

"I'm talking about possibilities here, that's all," Zoro stated calmly, his gaze moving to lock with Nami's brown eyes. "We should always be prepared for the worst-case scenario, understand? If I get locked into a single line of thinking, it will only slow me down. If she's my friend, I have to be ready to forgive."

Zoro's hand moved down to his swords, and he pushed the white sword out of its sheath a little, revealing the blade in the twilight. "If she's my enemy, I have be ready to fight."

There was silence on the rooftop for a moment while Zoro's words sank in. Maria felt chills all over, even though she was well protected from the cold air. It took her a moment to realize that the chills were coming from _inside_ her - a reaction to Zoro's words? Or maybe something else from her memories?

A flash of darkness went across her vision for a moment, and she caught sight of a figure that looked like they were made from a cloak of blackness, with a strange, red collar, and a white, wispy-like substance coming from the top of the figure's head. The red eyes hidden under the wisp looked angry, but then the creature's entire stance changed to one of confusion, and the red eyes changed to an expression that clearly was of pure curiosity and confusion.

_"Please...will you let me join you? I...I don't know what happened between us before, but...something tells me that this should repay any bad blood between us."_

The sound of Zoro sliding his sword back into his sheath brought Maria out of her thoughts with a jolt.

"Our best chance to settle this is tonight," the green-haired swordsman stated seriously. "Are we going?"

"Of course," Luffy replied instantly, having shifted to lock eyes with Zoro's.

The group sat on the rooftop in silence after Luffy's short statement, and Maria got another twist in her gut. She wanted to be able to help the pirates out, but she wasn't part of the crew in the first place, and fighting off angry hordes of shipwrights wasn't exactly something that she wanted to do, either.

Something told her she _might_ be able to handle them, but Maria wasn't sure whether she should trust herself with that thought or not.

"It's not that I object to the plan," Nami suddenly stated, catching the amnesiac's attention, "but we're still forgetting something. Sanji said he saw Robin walking with someone in a _mask_, remember? Obviously, that wasn't anyone of us, but Iceberg said the same thing - that he was attacked by a large man wearing a mask he didn't recognize." She frowned. "Whoever he is, I bet he's the reason Robin's doing all of this stuff."

"Yeah!" Chopper suddenly spoke up, looking over at Zoro. "That means it isn't really her fault and we just need to beat the real bad guy, right?"

Maria blinked at the statements from the navigator and the doctor. _If that's true...then who's the bad guy?_ The blue-eyed teen looked over at Zoro, wondering what the swordsman's answer was going to be.

"That's the ideal situation," Zoro admitted. "But on the other hand, it's possible that this guy could be one of Robin's friends."

"The problem is that we don't have much to go on other than 'a big man in a mask'," Nami responded. "So, where do we even start? I mean, what is our goal here?"

"We find Robin and capture her," Luffy stated flatly. He bowed his head a little, hiding his face under the brim of his straw hat.

Nami and Chopper looked at their captain in shock, while Maria blinked a couple times, her expression blank.

The way Luffy was speaking, it almost sounded like he had decided on what they were going to do as soon as the conversation had started.

"That's the only way we'll ever know the truth." Luffy put a hand on his hat and started to get to his feet.

"You're right," Zoro agreed, causing Maria to turn and look at the swordsman. "We're wasting time here trying to figure it out. Just one thing - Robin won't be easy to catch. After all, the World Government's been trying for twenty years, and it still hasn't happened."

_World Government? The world is one entire country?_ Maria blinked a couple times._ I wonder how that got started...or who's idea it was in the first place...and how corrupt it's gotten._

The teen's blue eyes widened slightly when she heard herself think the last part of her train of thought. _Corrupt? What made me wonder if the government is corrupt?_

"Like he said, it's the only way we'll know for sure," Nami stated as she started to get to her own feet.

"Yeah, let's settle this right now," Chopper agreed.

Zoro shifted and rose to his feet, and Maria quickly moved up onto her own, as well, feeling that she would look foolish if she was the only one still sitting down on the rooftop.

Seconds later, Maria felt the others' gazes on her, and she looked back at the trio somewhat nervously.

"So, what are you going to do?" Zoro asked, raising an eyebrow at the amnesiac.

"M-me?" Maria squeaked. "I-I'm..." The girl paused for a moment to consider her options, then shrugged helplessly. "I'm not sure. It's kind of between following you guys or going off on my own to find Paulie. He's gotta be at least a little bit worried about me, since I always hang around near him when Dock 1 is open." The blue-eyed amnesiac rubbed the back of her head with one hand as she added, "And...there could be a chance that I could convince him that you guys aren't the bad guys."

"You think you could do that?" Chopper asked, his eyes widening slightly.

"Maybe." Maria shrugged helplessly. "I haven't exactly tried something like this before...that I can remember, that is."

"Well, it's obvious to me that you don't know how to fight, so it might be a better idea if you went to the shipwrights," Nami suggested. "If anything, they may be able to protect you from the real culprits."

"You think so?" Maria blinked for a moment.

"Well, they are really strong."

Maria considered the orange-haired navigator's words for a moment, then gave a slight nod. "All right. I'll go and find Paulie. Good luck finding your missing crew mate."

With that, Maria turned and moved over to the edge of the rooftop, glancing down somewhat nervously at the sidewalk below before turning her attention to the other rooftops that were positioned nearby. Steeling herself, the amnesiac looked down at the sidewalk again...and jumped off the roof. Within a few seconds, she made contact with the ground below with a shaking crash that made the sidewalk look like it had become _cracked_ where Maria had landed.

The amnesiac didn't notice, however - she just simply got up from the crouch she had gotten into when she had landed and looked herself over. An amazed look crossed her face when she realized that she had managed to land intact, but then a determined look replaced it, and the teen started running around the sidewalk in search of shipwrights who might know where Paulie was located.

**Time Break**

When Maria finally found Paulie, the sun had already sunk far below the horizon, and the entirety of Water 7 was a ghost city.

"Paulie!"

The blond shipwright turned upon hearing his voice called, and his eyes widened in surprise when he saw Maria run over to him and the group of shipwrights that were with him. "Maria? Where the hell have you been, kid?" His eyes moved to see the puddle of water that was starting to gather underneath the amnesiac. "And why the hell are you wet?"

"I don't have a yagara, so I swim across the canals instead," Maria replied quickly. "Listen, Paulie - I have to talk to you about the Straw Hats."

_That_ got Paulie's attention, but the question he immediately asked made Maria extremely nervous.

"Do you know where they are?" Paulie demanded, the other shipwrights around him brandishing their saws.

"Not...not right now." Maria hesitated for a moment before stating quickly, "Paulie, they're not the bad guys! They couldn't have been the ones who shot Iceberg!"

"Kid, they're _pirates_ - of course they're the ones who did," Paulie replied gruffly. "You don't know them because -"

"I stayed last night in their hotel room! Of course I know them!" Maria barked back, clearly seething. "They're not the bad guys! They were out with their ship for most of the night before they went to the hotel and left their ship and a former crew member behind!"

"Former crew member? What the hell are you -"

"There was an explosion last night, out on the cape," Maria interrupted again. "Luffy was in the middle of a _duel_, and his crew was _watching_. I know - I was there. There's no way that any of them could have done that to Iceberg. Besides, the only one among them who _would_ have carried a gun uses a _slingshot_ instead, and he _left_ the crew because he didn't take the news about the ship too well! As far as I know, HE'S STILL ON THE _GOING MERRY_!"

The shipwrights looked at Maria in befuddlement while she panted, attempting to regain her breath from her shouting fest. Paulie's cigar looked like it was about to fall out of his mouth, but the precarious perch on his lower jaw was a usual sight whenever the shipwright opened his mouth to speak, so he wasn't losing that one.

"I'm telling you...the truth," Maria stated, looking up at the men starting around her.

"Then how do you explain Nico Robin doing what she did, huh?" one of the crew members burst out.

"How should I know? She wasn't there when they were having their duel - their cook went out this morning to look for her, but didn't hear from her until she told them she was leaving and pinning the blame on them." Maria looked somewhat concerned. "Nami thinks someone may be forcing her to do all of this - the large guy with the mask."

"And what makes you think you can trust her?" Paulie demanded coldly. "She's a pirate - and a scantily clad one at that!" The blond shipwright shuddered. "She could be lying for all you know."

"No, she wasn't." Maria shook her head. "Something tells me that she and the others were telling the truth. They're all worried about Robin and want to find out what's going on as much as you do, believe me."

"Well, your gut feelings may be _wrong_," Paulie shot back. He looked around the city for a moment and let out a noise of distaste. "The shelters are probably all locked up, now that the storm's so close. You may as well come with us to Galley-La's main building. It's probably the safest place for you to be right about now." The shipwright reached down and grabbed Maria's right arm before turning and walking off down the street, the other shipwrights following close. "Keep an eye out for those Straw Hats!"

Maria sighed irritably. _Well_, that _went well._

The amnesiac kept her mouth shut the entire trip to the Galley-La building, her eyes scanning the rooftops for any sign that Luffy and the others happened to be following them. Her blue eyes didn't pick up any sign of them, but Maria couldn't help but get the feeling that they were on the move. Somewhere.

Maria wasn't sure how she knew this, but something told her that it had to do with who she was.

It was Paulie who ended up breaking the silence.

"Listen, kid - there's a lot of things that are going on right now that I don't know anything about, but the Straw Hats are right in the middle of it. If we're going to get down to be bottom of it, then we have to get the Straw Hats and figure out what it is that they've done as a part of all this."

Maria eyed the blond shipwright. "They're as clueless as you are. Don't you get it? That's why Luffy responded the way he did back at Dock 1 when you mentioned Robin being in Iceberg's room last night."

Paulie raised an eyebrow. "How'd you know about that? I didn't see you with the immoral girl."

Maria's eyes widened. _Oh, shoot! Why did I let that slip out?_

"Uh..." Maria chuckled nervously. "I...uh..."

"Kid, do you know something that I don't?" Paulie's eyes narrowed somewhat.

"It's more like I'm relearning things about me as I go," Maria replied quickly. "And no, I didn't eat a Devil Fruit - the Straw Hats asked me that already."

"I kinda figured that already," the shipwright grunted in reply. "If anything comes up, let me know, okay? Maybe we can figure out where your friends are."

"Well...I doubt that what I've recovered so far will be of much help to that...since I'm only remembering a bunch of monsters so far..."

"Monsters?" Paulie appeared skeptical.

"Yeah...I mean, how else do you describe creatures that can control the elements without eating Devil Fruits? They call themselves Pokemon, but...I'm not exactly sure why."

"Sounds like you've got your memories mixed up with some sort of fairy tale," Paulie scoffed.

"Mmmmmm..." Maria could tell that Paulie's statement wasn't true, but she wasn't about to tell him down for it. Something told her that, like with the Straw Hats' innocence, he wouldn't believe her statement.

The group soon arrived at the building. Paulie pushed Maria into an office on the second floor and told her to stay there until he came to get her the next morning.

When the shipwright left and closed and locked the door behind him, Maria couldn't help but get the feeling that she was going to disobey the shipwright's order if the Straw Hats and the real culprits were going to show up. Something was shifting in her gut, and it was telling her that there was a chance that she was going to have to fight.

**Maria's proving to have more and more mysterious quirks as we go, huh? Who expected the sidewalk to crack underneath her when she jumped off the roof? I know why it did, but I'm not saying a thing until we get to that point in the story.**

**Well, we've got the stage set for the attack on Galley-La from you-know-who! See you guys next week with that particular chapter!**


	9. Attack on Galley-La!

**Hi! I'm back again with the next chapter! :)**

**Thanks for the Follow, ABookWormForLife, secretdewdrop, - and thanks for the Favorite, ZabuzasGirl!**

**Cyannel - You're being hyped about my story made me hyped about my story! I'm glad that you like what I've done so far, and I hope that you keep liking it!**

**Zabuzas - I'm glad you like it! Here's the next chapter!**

**Chapter 9 - Attack on Galley-La!**

Maria paced up and down the office Paulie had pushed her into, feeling increasingly nervous for a reason that the teen knew absolutely nothing about.

She felt like she had experienced this feeling somewhere before, but whenever the blue-eyed amnesiac tried to think back to when she had first felt it, she was confronted by different flashes of pictures that disappeared as quickly as they had come: a tower that was crumbling, the sky swirling in an angry red; a deep abyss filled with Pokemon that weren't truly there; a volcanic island covered in darkness...and multiple other places that Maria couldn't really recognize. And the wind that was rattling the windows from the outside wasn't exactly helping the girl's mood, either.

All in all, it felt like a night that no one was going to forget so easily - and for all the bad reasons.

The amnesiac's thought was confirmed when, at quarter to ten, a loud explosion suddenly shook her out of her thoughts of strange mazes and elemental creatures appearing at every turn. Shaken from the noise, Maria ran over to the window and looked down in order to see what had just happened, but she saw smoke and flames rising from up the front of the building.

"They're attacking!" Maria exclaimed, alarmed. "This is bad...that came without warning! But...what does that say of the real people behind all this? What are they planning to do with Iceberg?"

_Are they attacking out in the open? But...the shipwrights were preparing for an attack like this. Surely they'd be ready for someone like this. Unless...are the real culprits really that strong?_

Loud yells came from outside of the room, and Maria heard people yelling as footsteps were rammed into the wooden floor. Something about people coming this way and causing a lot of damage all over the building..and the people on the first floor needing reinforcements in order to keep a major fire that had sprung up under control.

_Fire...?_

Something at the back of Maria's mind that she should go out and try to help, but the blue-eyed amnesiac's own misgivings made the blue-eyed amnesiac hesitate.

_What am I going to be able to do against these attackers?_ Maria swallowed at the thought of running into one of these masked figures - maybe even the one from the night before - and having something happen to her.

_But...what would happen if Luffy and the others ran into them? And ran into Robin...and she wasn't so friendly anymore._

At that thought, a small, dark space within Maria came to light with a spark. A small flame spurted up, lighting up an area of the amnesiac that hadn't been lit before - or, at least, hadn't been lit for the last week or so. From the flame, a strange warmth spread through Maria, going from her chest down to her fingertips, making Maria wonder if someone had managed to turn up the heat in the building - had the fire spread that far?

Maria reached up and unzipped her orange jacket, letting it fall loose and showing her red shirt underneath. The teen had hoped that would solve her strange heat problem, but it didn't do anything to cool her body down. She considered actually taking _off_ her jacket for a moment, but Maria quickly shot the thought down - there was no way that she was just going to drop that jacket like it was dead weight.

The warmth increased suddenly, and the amnesiac's hands moved instinctively, as though they were gripping something invisible. Maria watched with wide eyes as a glow started to come from her hands, followed closely by a blast of light that forced the blue-eyed teen to look away for a moment. When the light faded, and her gaze returned to what her hands had been reaching for, her eyes widened in shock.

"What the...where in the world did _this_ come from?" Maria looked over the object in her hands with clear amazement and awe.

It was a staff that was made of wood that was a bright red, and thick enough that her fingers couldn't touch each other. At the top of the staff was the intricately-carved form of a phoenix with its wings circled slightly around itself, carved just so that the entire thing looked like it had been made out of fire. The phoenix's head itself also looked dangerous, considering just how sharp the beak had been carved, but there was also strangely wise look in its eyes.

"Is this...is this how I was able to fight before I lost my memory?" Maria murmured, turning the staff over in her hands. Her gaze went to the door, and the curious expression that had been on her face changed to a dark, determined one instead.

Moments later, the door knob had been knocked off from the inside, and Maria pushed the door open and stepped into an empty hallway.

The teen looked down at the staff in her hands, feeling a strange warmth emanating from it. A knowing smirk appeared upon the girl's face, and it quickly turned into a grin.

"This feels right," Maria stated, nodding to herself. "Let's see if I can remember how to fight with it." The amnesiac looked up and down the hallway. "But first, I've got to find the others and make sure that they're all right - or, at least, that the shipwrights are okay. That explosion I heard earlier could have hurt a lot of people."

With that, the teen flipped her red and orange baseball cap backwards, placing the bill at the back of her head. Maria then turned and started running down the hall. She wasn't sure where the hall would lead her, but she was certain that she'd find something that she'd be able to help with on the other end.

At the end of the hall, there was a corner, which Maria quickly turned, holding her staff in both hands so that neither end would get in the way of her feet. The blue-eyed amnesiac quickly came to a screeching stop, however, her eyes becoming the size of dinner plates.

"Wh-what-" Maria nearly lost her grip on the staff for a moment, but she quickly gripped it more tightly. Her body was shaking in shock at what she saw in front of her. "What _happened_ here?"

The amnesiac's blue-eyed gaze went over the hallway in front of her, scanning the collapsed forms of the shipwrights that happened to be lying there. Weapons and saws were lying all over the place near the collapsed men, but it wasn't this that set Maria on edge.

It was the sight of what looked like pools of blood coming out from underneath a couple of the bodies.

Maria could feel the blood drain from her face. _Who...who could have done this? It looks like someone just rampaged through here and completely destroyed everybody!_ She swallowed, and the picture of a grinning man with a metal nose and teal hair that stuck up in the front came to mind.

The amnesiac shook the picture out of her mind. _Nah, it couldn't be the weird guy who was fighting Luffy. He's more likely to make it look like a bomb went off in here, I think. It's got to be someone way more dangerous than that...I didn't even hear a fight going on out here when I was in that office!_

"Well, no use standing around," Maria spoke aloud. Her voice felt unnaturally loud, what with all the collapsed people near her. Some of them might even be - _no, no, don't think about that, there's no way that any of them could be...I think._

Cautiously, the teen started to step around the fallen forms of the shipwrights, being especially careful not to step on any hands or guns that might have been lying in her path. If any small pools of blood were lying where her foot was about to step, a shudder went through Maria from head to foot, and she carefully maneuvered herself so that not a drop of the red substance found its way onto her shoes.

Maria had managed to get herself to a break in the area before stopping to take a breather. For some reason, being around these..._unconscious_...bodies was starting to pull at her heart and make her nauseous.

"These people didn't deserve to...to go through what they have," Maria murmured quietly to no one in particular. For some reason, the "d-word" didn't exactly want to come out of her mouth, and the amnesiac didn't even sense it forming at the back of her mind. Something about her...abhorred the idea of people dying for no reason.

Maria wondered if it meant that she had never witnessed it herself until now. If that was true, then there must have been something strange with the places she had been to before. Or, maybe she was just squeamish at the sight of blood.

But, if that was true, then...where did the phoenix staff come from?

_"I made a vow to myself that I would never kill anyone! Do you understand me?! I'm not a killer, and I'm not about to let anyone order me to force someone to die!"_

Maria blinked upon hearing the voice - no, her voice - echo in her mind. She...she promised herself that she wouldn't kill anyone? Is that it?

Somehow, those words felt right.

Maria nodded to herself absently and started to work at moving past the next collapsed figure when she heard the sound of two people yelling. Her head shot up, and she looked over in the direction that she was going.

"It sounds like it's coming from over there!" Maria realized, her eyes locking on a set of doors at the end of the hall. "It sounds like there's someone behind that door!"

Settling on the new goal of getting to the door and finding out what was going on, Maria quickly moved across the floor with a lot more ease than she had before. Within about a minute, she had managed to reach the doors without stepping on or in anything, and she readied herself to knock a doorknob off again.

Maria raised her staff above her head, and brought if down on the door with as much force as she could muster. She didn't exactly remember how much strength she had put into her initial hit on the other door, but the blue-eyed amnesiac figured that this would be just about enough to let her get the doors open. Swinging down, the teen let out a short yell as the phoenix came into contact with the metal doorknobs. The resulting impact sent a jarring wave up Maria's arms, but it wasn't enough to make her stumble or lose her footing. However, it was enough to dent the doorknobs at least a little.

Maria pulled her staff back from the doorknobs and lifted her left leg. Upon lifting it up, she teetered for a moment on her right leg, but then Maria placed the staff's butt on the floor so that she could have some extra leverage. The amnesiac then proceeded to kick the doors open.

After knocking against the doorknobs with her foot about three times, the doors themselves creaked open, allowing Maria to lower her left foot and step into the room beyond.

What she saw there was most unexpected.

"Luffy? Paulie?" Maria blinked in confusion as she looked down at the two figures. "What are you doing lying on the floor?"

"We're kind of pinned down at the moment," Paulie growled, pulling at the large, metal rings that were around his wrists. Identical rings also went around his ankles, knees, elbows, waist, and neck. Luffy in a similar situation, but without the ring around his waist...or the bloody holes in his clothes. "These two guys in masks from CP9 got us."

"CP9?" Maria blinked in confusion. "Who are those guys?"

"Probably government agents." Paulie pulled again at the bonds that held him down, but then let out a growl of annoyance. "I need you to go and get the shipwrights so that they can get us out of these things so that we can go after them!"

"Uh...yeah, about that..." Maria glanced behind her at the collapsed forms of the shipwrights in the hallway. "...I don't think I'm going to be able to find any conscious help."

"Well, isn't that just great." Paulie growled in annoyance.

It was at this point that Luffy suddenly let out a grunt and managed to pull his head through the ring that was around his neck. The pirate captain bounced back and forth for a moment before his head hit the ring his neck had previously been under.

Maria blinked a couple times as she stared at Luffy before a smirk came across her face. "Hey, do you think you could do that with the rest of you so that we can get Paulie up?"

"Sure. Just give me a sec." Luffy grinned at Maria before lowering his upper body and starting to pull on his right arm. The blue-eyed amnesiac wisely took a step back to avoid the rubbery appendage when it came flying out from beneath the two rings that were holding it down, stretching out for a moment before retracting with a _snap!_

"So, where'd you get the staff?" Luffy asked before he started to work on pulling out his left arm.

Paulie stopped his own struggling for a moment and looked up at the wooden object that Maria was holding with her right hand. "Yeah, where _did_ you get that? I haven't seen anything like that around here before."

Maria looked over at her staff before looking back at Paulie and Luffy and shrugging helplessly. "It just...appeared out of nowhere not too long ago."

"Bullshit. Stuff like that just doesn't appear out of nowhere."

"Well, this kinda did." Maria shrugged again while Luffy grabbed two of the rings embedded in the floor and started to pull back, grunting and glaring down at his legs. "I don't know how, or why. Just another mystery I can chalk up to my past, I guess."

Before Paulie could respond to that, Luffy suddenly exploded out of the rings that were holding down his legs and waist and hit the wall behind him. When the black-haired teen fell, one could clearly see a dent in the wall with cracks leading out from where Luffy's head had hit it.

"Easy!" Luffy exclaimed, getting to his feet and putting his hands up in the air. He turned to grin over at Paulie and Maria - who was trying not to laugh at the shipwright's dumbfounded expression upon seeing Luffy do what he did best. "Cause I'm rubber!"

Paulie quickly recovered from his shock and started to shift under the rings again. "All right; good. Now help me!"

"No prob! Maria, you help, too!" Luffy ran over to Paulie.

"Yeah, sure." Maria gave a nod before moving over, as well. "I'll see what I can do, but I probably won't be able to do as much as you can."

"They're gonna pay...those masked bastards!" Paulie declared before he started pulling with even more ferocity showing on his face than before.

Maria got down on her knees near the ring that was wrapping around Paulie's left foot. The amnesiac looked at the metal for a moment before looking at the head of her dragon and gaining an idea. Quickly, she maneuvered the wings of the carving under the ring and started to pull at the metal. At the same time, Luffy had managed to slip his fingers around a band on Paulie's right wrist and was pulling up. Luffy easily yanked he metal out of the floor, leaving two neat holes while the teen fell back, the metal flying out of his hands and embedding itself into a wall.

"What are these, giant staples or something?" Maria grunted, continuing to use her staff like it was a crowbar.

"Hey, you're probably going to break your staff," Paulie warned.

"No, I'm not." Maria's own answer caused her to pause and blink in confusion for a moment before shaking her head and going back to pulling on the metal band that was keeping Paulie's leg down. After more pulling and grunting, however, Maria had to give up and pull back, panting and sweating from attempting to remove just one ring of metal. "Sorry, Luffy, but I don't think I'll be able to get any of these off."

"All right." Luffy gave the blue-eyed amnesiac an encouraging smile. "At least you helped, right?" He finished pulling off the band that was keeping Paulie's left arm down - sending the metal flying through a window - then moved over to the shipwright's feet and started to yank those up.

"Could you get the one at my neck so I can sit up?" Paulie demanded, annoyed that Luffy was getting his limbs first.

"Just give me a sec." Luffy yanked out the ring at Paulie's right knee, then went over to the shipwright's head and stood over the man, grabbing hold of the ring that was there and yanking up.

Maria followed the ring as it traveled upward, and let out a whistle of amazement when the staple stuck itself in the ceiling.

Luffy gave his signature laugh as he moved back to the shipwright's feet; Maria scooted back to give the pirate teen more room to work...and also more space for her to react in case one of the large, metal staples came flying in her direction. Meanwhile, Paulie sat up slowly, one hand rubbing his neck while the other one helped keep him up.

"Had you been having any more difficulty with these, I might have choked if you'd kept your hands there any longer," Paulie commented.

Luffy made quick work of the other staples, saving the one that had been around Paulie's waist for last. When that one had joined its brother in the ceiling, Luffy stepped back and clapped some unseen dust off his hands while Paulie got to his feet.

"Are you sure you're all right standing up like this?" Maria asked, her eyebrows scrunching together in worry.

"I'm fine," Paulie replied. "The one we need to worry about right now, though, is Iceberg. If these guys are after some stupid blueprints, then we need to get to him before they take him out."

"Do you think Robin's there, too?" Luffy asked, a serious expression suddenly crossing his face.

"Probably, if these are the guys she's working with, now." Paulie glanced over at the blue-eyed amnesiac, who was leaning a little on her phoenix staff. "Sorry about not believing you earlier, by the way."

"Well...you believe me now, and that's what matters, I guess," Maria commented. "So, where's Iceberg?"

"In his room - not like he's going to be moving around yet." Paulie turned and started running down the hall. "Come on - it's this way."

Luffy was quick to follow after the blond shipwright, and Maria was quick to pursue the black-haired pirate captain. Despite the fact that Maria hardly knew anything about actually fighting, something told her that she might still be capable of assisting somehow.

Oddly enough, Maria was able to easily jump about from open spot to open spot on the floor without so much as tripping on a pistol or stepping on someone's fingers - or in their blood. The amnesiac wasn't concentrating on where her feet were going, however - she was watching Luffy and Paulie ahead of her as the trio moved through the halls - passing by the room Maria had broken out of - and towards a set of stairs...once again, covered in the bodies of collapsed shipwrights.

"Come on, hurry it up already!" Paulie barked, turning to look at the two teens as he reached the base of the stairs and glared at Maria and Luffy.

"You probably shouldn't be pushing yourself," Maria murmured in concern, her eyes going over the holes that peppered Paulie. _Those look like bullet holes, but...there's no way that someone could be moving from so many of those after getting hit!_

"I said I'm fine, didn't I?" Paulie growled in reply. "CP9 is probably already up there, so we should hurry the hell up and take them out before Iceberg gets killed!" The blond shipwright turned and started running up the stairs.

"And we have to get Robin back," Luffy added before running up after Paulie.

Maria started up the stairs herself, but then she hesitated a few steps up. She didn't want to run into this CP9 group so soon after gaining (regaining?) her staff. Shoot, the amnesiac didn't even know how to fight properly with it yet, and she was worried about what was going to happen if she got into a fight in this state. However, for some odd reason, her heart felt calm.

_This...this feeling...it's like when I was watching the duel between Usopp and Luffy, Maria realized. I have fought before, but...can I now?_

Instinctively, her hands gripped her staff even more tightly, as though her body was attempting to give her mind an answer.

"Maria!" Luffy called down the stairs at the amnesiac. "Are you coming or not?!"

Maria's blue gaze shot up from her staff to lock with Luffy's searching gaze. The pirate captain had stopped halfway up the staircase, with Paulie standing about a quarter short of the top.

"Uh...yeah, right." Maria let go of her staff with one hand and started running up the stairs herself, keeping her staff as parallel with the ground as she could so that the staff wouldn't cause her to trip. The amnesiac reached Luffy easily, and stopped beside him for a moment.

Luffy simply gave the girl a nod, then turned and ran up the stairs after Paulie, Maria following close behind.

The trip barreled down the hall, Maria looking around nervously at the back of the pack in case someone suddenly came flying seemingly out of nowhere.

The first set of doors they came across, Luffy suddenly came to a stop and turned so sharply to his left that Maria was forced to stop short so that she wouldn't run into him.

The captain took a few steps back and started to charge at the doors, yelling at the top of his lungs, while Paulie turned around sharply and yelled, "Hey, Straw Hat - wait!"

The pirate captain didn't hear him, as he proceeded to ram through the doors and into a dark room, still yelling.

"This isn't the right door, you damned idiot - Iceberg's room is the next one over!" Paulie barked, pointing further down the hall.

Luffy stopped yelling and turned to look at the wall to his right. "Yeah? Oh? Oops."

Paulie facepalmed while Maria groaned and shook her head.

"Well, only one thing left to do." Luffy to a step back and grabbed his right shoulder with his left hand before swinging it around like he was trying to wind it up. Then he threw his fist forward and slammed it into the wall.

Maria blinked in confusion when she saw that Luffy had only dented the wall. "You...you didn't even break it?" The amnesiac stepped into the dark room cautiously, Paulie following in after her.

Luffy didn't answer Maria's question. Instead, the pirate captain stepped back a couple steps before jumping forward, one of his feet going first as he went in yelling.

"GIVE ROBIN BACK!" Luffy roared.

"Luffy!" came an unidentified voice - a girl, one that Maria hadn't heard before. Her blue-eyed gaze went over the figure in the room, and she caught sight of a blue-eyed, black-haired woman dressed in green who looked absolutely shocked.

_Is that Robin?_

"Luffy?"

Maria's gaze moved, and she caught sight of Zoro coming in through the door...which clearly had been cut to pieces.

_I was wondering where he was,_ Maria noted thoughtfully.

When the rubble and dust had finally collapsed, Maria was able to get a better look around the room, which was clearly a bedroom - why else was there a bed in there? Besides the strange, black-haired woman in green - who had responded to Luffy's reaction so strongly - there was Iceberg (bandaged and bleeding from one of his shoulders), a man with his hair shaped like bull horns, and...

_The foremen and Iceberg's secretary?!_ Maria's eyes widened in shock.

"Robin," Luffy stated, panting, "I've finally found you."

"Hey, Luffy," Zoro spoke up, glaring over at his captain. "Where were you when we had to beat up all those shipwrights?!"

"Robin, why did you leave us?!" Chopper, in full reindeer mode, cried out.

"Hold on a sec," Nami murmured, looking a little nervous. "Something's not right here."

Beside Maria, Paulie looked as shocked as the amnesiac as his gaze went over the figures that were standing there.

One of the figures - the black-haired foreman with the top hat and the white pigeon - turned to face the hole in the wall that Luffy had made.

"Well, well, well," the man spoke, his voice smooth and bored.

Maria stiffened while Paulie's eyes widened.

"He...he spoke?" Maria squeaked. "Without the bird?"

Iceberg let out a groan as he started to look up from where he had collapsed. "P-Paulie..." His voice was weak, and it seemed to Maria that he had to be in pain. "S-Straw Hat..."

"Iceberg..." Paulie muttered. "What is this?" An angry, frustrated look came over his face. "WHAT THE HELL'S GOIN' ON?!"

**Well, that escalated quickly.**

**Maria's got a weapon now! Yay! But where did it come from? And what exactly is it that she has done and is capable of doing?**

**This is only the beginning...**

**See you guys next week!**


	10. Betrayal! CP9's Identities Revealed!

**Hi! I know I'm a day late from posting this, but better now than anytime else, right?**

**Thanks to Keeperofhounds and Aria868for the Favorite, Morietachibana for the Favorite and Follow, Wizle and onepieceoffreedom for Following!**

**chaosrin - I'm glad you find Maria's amnesia interesting. ;) And I find it interesting that you don't find the Pokemon thing not really all that farfetched.**

**Cyannel - Yeah, I know that staffs aren't really used all that often; that's why I decided to give Maria one when I started writing these. The staff isn't all of Maria's power, though - she's going to get her abilities back over time, as her memories continue to come back. So the staff isn't the end of it. :)**

**And here's the chapter!**

**Chapter 10 - Betrayal! CP9's Identities Revealed!**

_"Iceberg..." Paulie muttered. "What is this?" An angry, frustrated look came over his face. "WHAT THE HELL'S GOIN' ON?!"_

"Paulie..." Iceberg wheezed. "Dammit...you should've run..."

"This doesn't make sense," Paulie muttered, looking around the room again with shocked eyes.

"I agree with you," Maria replied. "There's no way they could be government agents. I mean, they've always been shipwrights...right?" Her blue eyes scanned the room, catching sight of a strange, bull mask lying on the floor. Near it was a giant skull with yellow eyes and a fez, and a white bear's head with half-lidded eyes and its mouth partially open to reveal a row of spiky teeth along the upper jaw.

"You're making it look like...like you guys were the ones after Iceberg," Paulie continued. "But that _can't_ be right!"

Maria noticed that none of the foremen - or the secretary or the bull-horned man - were making eye contact with Paulie. Were they unhappy about what they had done? Or was it something else?

When no one answered Paulie, the shipwright changed to a different tactic: he let out a yell before a demanding question followed.

"What the hell are you doing with those weird costumes on?!" Paulie demanded. "Stop screwin' with me here!"

The group still didn't answer.

"Hey...Kalifa! Blueno! Kaku! Lucci! Say something, dammit!"

No one moved. Maria could see that Iceberg was struggling on the floor, but with what, the amnesiac wasn't exactly sure.

"Oh, yeah!" Luffy turned and looked over at Paulie. "Those are the same guys who were with you at the shipyard, right?"

"Actually...that square-nosed guy came to our ship," Zoro muttered, his arms crossed over his chest.

The swordsman's statement made Maria remember what had happened earlier the day before - when she had first seen Luffy and Nami. Kaku - aka, square-nose - had said he'd seen the ship...and that he didn't think they could repair it. Pigeon guy - Lucci - and the secretary - Kalifa - had been present at the time, but Maria had never seen Blueno before. Maybe he worked somewhere that wasn't at the docks?

"I see..." Nami murmured. "Then the attack on Iceberg was an inside job."

"Hey, what?" Chopper was confused. "I don't get it."

Neither did Maria. She bit down on her lower lip nervously as she looked around at the people present. Somehow, she found her eyes locking with Robin's own blue orbs, and the amnesiac gave an instinctive, nervous swallow. There was something about the woman that made Maria uneasy - mostly how she was being looked at. Like she was some sort of oddity that wasn't supposed to be there...

"Paulie."

Maria was shaken away from Robin's gaze when Lucci's smooth, bored voice reached her ears again. The amnesiac turned her head to look at the man with the pigeon on his shoulder.

"With all due respect, we are secret agents working for the government," Lucci stated. "But hey, you'll forgive me if I say I'm sorry, right?"

Maria looked over at Paulie, and wisely took a step away from the blond shipwright; the man was absolutely _seething_ with anger - so much so that Maria was surprised that he hadn't exploded from it yet.

"We were comrades," Lucci continued, "building ships together from dawn till dusk. I realize this is quite sudden for you, so perhaps you'd believe me if I...smashed Iceberg's face."

Paulie tensed; Maria could see the muscles under his jacket bulging at the thought of the mayor of Water 7 getting pounded into the ground even more than he already was. Maria was tense as well, but she wasn't as ready to leap into action like Paulie was; she was worried about what these people were going to do to them.

And Luffy? He was just plain surprised.

"Just shut the hell up," Paulie growled, clenching his fists. "I've heard enough." The shipwright's entire body seemed to be shaking, and his eyes were shadowed over, making him appear even _more_ angry in Maria's eyes. "You were that guy in the bull mask, weren't you?! That was the first time I ever heard your voice! All those years...you never said a word...but you could talk just fine!"

Maria blinked. _Is that what he's so mad about? I mean, it's unexpected, but...I kinda think the real issue here is that he's one of the guys who's trying to kill Iceberg and pin the blame on the Straw Hats!_

"I'LL TEACH YOU TO MAKE FUN'A ME!" Paulie roared. The shipwright took off then, making a beeline straight for Lucci.

Maria tensed up, her hands tightening their grip on her phoenix staff. _He recognizes him by his voice and what mask he was wearing...does that mean they ran into each other? Does that mean...Lucci made all those bullet holes in Paulie?!_

"Paulie, stop it!" Iceberg called out.

However, his foreman wasn't planning on listening. Paulie kept right on going, and brought his left arm in front of him. "Five Hitch...Knives!"

A line of rope came flying out from Paulie's sleeve, knife blades attached by knots that ran the entire length of the cord. It would have hit Lucci dead on...if it wasn't for the fact that the man seemingly vanished into thin air.

"What-"

Paulie never finished his question. Maria watched Lucci fade in and out of sight as he moved around the knife-covered rope and right up in front of Paulie. The man formed his right hand into a fist - leaving his index finger pointing out - and he slammed it into Paulie's chest.

Maria's eyes widened, and she paled when she saw blood flying from the place Lucci had hit, and Paulie stumbling back as though he had been hit in the gut by a Gum Gum Pistol.

"Finger Pistol," Lucci declared emotionlessly.

"Paulie!" Maria exclaimed, terrified for her friend.

The two combatants stood there, Lucci standing still with his finger in Paulie's chest, and Paulie attempting to move, his breathing labored.

"You still haven't learned your lesson, have you?" Lucci questioned coldly.

Paulie's arms moved, as though he was trying to grab the rope and pull it back, but then they fell limp. After a moment, Lucci removed his finger from the shipwright's chest and stepped back, causing Maria to shudder when she saw that his index finger was _completely_ covered in blood. The government agent watched with disinterest as Paulie stumbled, trying to stay upright.

"Hey - are you okay?" Luffy asked, concerned.

"Stay up, stay up, stay up," Maria chanted under her breath.

Paulie stumbled for a moment more, but then he managed to regain his footing and put his hands on his knees in order to stay on his feet, coughing and panting.

"Screw you...Lucci," the blond shipwright managed to wheeze out. Then he collapsed onto his knees, his legs giving out underneath him.

The pigeon - which had flown off Lucci's shoulder when he had disappeared - flew back onto the agent's shoulder with a coo.

"It's pointless to resist," Lucci commented, looking down at Paulie. "Our abilities far exceed those of a normal human, as you can see."

Maria's eyebrows scrunched together with worry. _Exceed those of a normal human? Does that mean...they aren't anymore?_

_"I'm...not exactly human."_

The tired voice that sounded so much like Maria's own made the amnesiac clench her teeth and become even more concerned than she already was. What in the world did _that_ mean?

"After many years of training, we've mastered an art called the Six Powers," Lucci continued. "These techniques transform the body into a living weapon with the strength of over a hundred men."

"L-living weapon?" Maria squeaked. "Th-that's bad. That's _really_ bad." She looked over at Luffy, but he was watching Lucci and Paulie rather than looking around. "The government is supposed to be the good guy...what made them think of teaching their agents this stuff?! It isn't right!" Maria shook her head, then felt another's eyes on her. She looked up cautiously, and found herself locking eyes with Robin again.

_Okay, she's got the microscope look again...that's creepy._ Maria looked away quickly, instead moving her eyes to the phoenix staff in her hands.

"...After all this time..."

Maria looked up again when Paulie wheezed out his words, and she watched with wide eyes as the shipwright started to get to his feet again.

"...Why?"

Lucci's left hand came down and grabbed Paulie's shoulder, and the shipwright looked up and met the agent's eyes.

"Sorry, Paulie," Lucci stated coldly. He shifted his stance and moved his other hand back and above him. "Our friendship is over. I have to eliminate you."

Maria could feel her blood run cold, and she gripped her dragon staff more tightly as her legs' muscles bunched underneath her. _He's going to try that Finger Pistol-thing again._ The amnesiac's blue eyes moved down to the red staff in her hands, fear radiating in her eyes._ What should I do? I can't stand by and let Paulie get killed!_

"Lucci, no!" Iceberg exclaimed. "Don't!"

"Leave him ALONE!"

Apparently, Luffy felt he couldn't sit by either, because he kicked out with a foot that was clearly aimed at Lucci's head. However, the pigeon man saw it coming, and he moved his free hand and grabbed Luffy's foot.

"He...he caught it?" Maria squeaked in surprise. "And he wasn't even thrown back by the force behind it?"

Luffy looked surprised, but then a serious look came over his face, and he jumped up and brought a fist back while his leg retracted, pulling Luffy _towards_ Lucci.

Maria blinked in slight surprise upon seeing what Luffy was doing, and she grinned when she thought that Luffy might be able to whack him in the face.

However, what happened next caused Maria to wonder if the government agents really _were_ human anymore.

"Gum Gum..."

Lucci let go of Luffy's foot and stated flatly, "Iron Body."

"Gatling!"

Once again, Luffy's two fists seemed to multiply as his arms stretched and retracted. Every single hit made its mark...but they didn't seem to have any sort of effect. At all.

Maria shifted where she had been standing so that she could see around Luffy's flying fists. Lucci was standing with his legs apart and his fists clenched, leaving every single part of his upper half completely open as Luffy hit his shoulders and chest. It almost looked like every single muscle was tense..and that was keeping him from getting damage.

Luffy noticed this, as well, and he stopped throwing punches and landed on the floor of the bedroom, legs bent, one fist on the floor. He looked up at Lucci - who was steaming where Luffy had hit him - and noted in shock, "That didn't work at all!"

"What _are_ these people?" Maria yelped. "There's no way that they can be human! If Lucci was able to withstand an attack like _that_..." A shudder passed through her.

The steam faded from the air, and Lucci's body relaxed as he looked up at Luffy. "You're nothing but a pest. Shave."

Lucci instantly disappeared from sight, clearly moving in some direction before he vanished.

"He's gone!" Luffy sounded like he couldn't believe his eyes.

Maria clenched her teeth in fear as she started to look around with increasing nervousness. "And he can reappear absolutely anywhere..."

As Maria was speaking, she caught sight of Lucci moving again, reappearing and disappearing in a strange, zigzag pattern. On a whim, something told her that she had to get between Lucci and Luffy before the captain ended up getting hurt.

_Wait - what? But that would probably kill me! I don't want to end up like what happened to Paulie!_

But the feeling persisted. As it did, and her heart seemed to tie itself in knots and unknot them, visions passed through her mind of her taking blows for others and still coming out intact. Most of the figures and the instances were really fuzzy, but there was one that stuck out - the last memory she saw, which also had a strange connection to the other memories she had been recovering as of late.

_A creature with a black cloak seemingly appeared out of nowhere in the blue tunnel, clearly aiming to take a swipe at the green, leafy lizard-creature next to Maria. "You will not be reaching your destination! The world will become shrouded in darkness!"_

_"Darkrai!" Maria identified, glaring at the white, whispy head of the Pokemon. There was no way that she was going to let this creature stop them from saving the world from the nightmare it was to become._

_The phoenix staff in her hands glowed a bright, angry red as she moved in front of the Pokemon next to her, timing it just right so that the strange, monstrous Pokemon hit her with a wave of shadows instead of her ally. "Gah!"_

Maria's vision quickly cleared up, and when she saw that Luffy hadn't been hit yet, she decided to take a chance. Without thinking, she dashed in front of the black-haired pirate teen, jumping off some of the rubble on the floor in order to get to her chosen spot faster.

As a result, Lucci rammed his finger into Maria's chest rather than Luffy's neck.

The room seemed to still for a moment as Maria felt Lucci's index finger dig into the center of her chest, causing her to grit her teeth at the pain. _I refuse to give him the pleasure of my scream._

The force of the blow suddenly sent Maria flying backwards, hitting Luffy into the wall next of Zoro and the others as a result. The blue-eyed amnesiac collapsed onto the floor, feeling very dizzy. Her chest hurt _ridiculously_ - especially where Lucci's finger had slammed into her. It felt as though something was piercing her innards somewhere, but that shouldn't have been possible.

"Maria!" Chopper exclaimed, startled and afraid for the girl. However, to Maria, his voice sounded strangely...muted, somehow.

_I need to sleep...like, now._

Maria's vision started to blur, and she closed her eyes and her body went limp as she descended into the darkness of unconsciousness.

**Change in POV**

Robin stared in shock as the strange girl who had arrived with Luffy somehow managed to dash in front of Straw Hat mere moments before Lucci could hit him with an attack. Pain clearly flashed across her face, but the archeologist could see that the girl was doing her best to keep in any sort of exclamation of pain that might have come out as a result of the attack. And to get hit in the chest...!

"Maria!" Chopper exclaimed a second time. He quickly scrambled over the rubble that used to be the door in order to get to Luffy and the girl, who was now lying unconscious, her shirt clearly dented into her chest, but not torn.

If Lucci was disappointed at not covering his finger with the girl's blood, he didn't show it.

Chopper shrank down to his Brain Point and grabbed the girl's - the doctor did call her _Maria_, didn't he? - right wrist. A frown came over his face as he tried to pull it up without bringing the staff with it, but the one hand that was still holding onto the phoenix staff had a grip of death on it. Like the item was so important, Maria wasn't about to let go, even when she was asleep.

And then there was a flash of light, and the staff disappeared abruptly, leaving most of the people present with wide eyes of surprise.

"What the hell?" Paulie managed, still somehow on his feet. Robin knew the holes in his arms and legs were Finger Pistol attacks, so the fact alone that he was standing was admirable.

_I believe you summed up the situation quite well,_ Robin noted dryly.

Still, there was something off about the girl. Robin couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she could bet her Devil Fruit powers that this girl being with the Straw Hats was no mere coincidence. Besides, there was something about that staff that felt oddly familiar, somehow...

"I thought that girl was going to do something stupid," Lucci stated, annoyance now showing in his voice. "And look at her now. She didn't even manage to regain all her memories before passing on into the afterlife."

_Regain her memories...? This child lost them? Then, does that mean that Luffy decided he would try to help her regain them?_

"She's not dead." A relieved look came over Chopper's face, and he dropped Maria's wrist onto her stomach, where it lay limply. "I don't see any blood, so that means she probably has internal bleeding."

Lucci took a step towards them. "Perhaps I can remedy the situation and make it _external_ bleeding instead."

"Like hell you are." Luffy glared at Lucci with a look of pure hatred as he got to his feet.

Robin had seen that look before - Luffy had had it on his face when he had been facing Crocodile. That felt like it had taken place _years_ ago, before she joined the crew and-

_No, no. Don't think about that. You're doing this for their sakes. You can't get attached now._

"You're not her opponent; you're _mine_," Luffy growled darkly.

**If it seems like Luffy is being protective of Maria in anything even remotely loving, I'm going to tell you now that I'm not planning on doing anything like that. At all.**

**As for what's happened to Maria...I'm not saying anything until next chapter. Sorry for the cliffhanger!**


	11. Flash Fire

**Hi, guys! I'm posting a little early today because I don't know what exactly is going to happen tomorrow.**

**Thanks to lucasxgamers, Tsukino Arisu - A, Lily Allycia, TwilighterMindBodyAndSoul, and AckRed for the Follows, and Keldeox and Volpiko for the Favs and Follows!**

**Cyannel - Your review almost made me want to post a second chapter last week. XD It took a lot of willpower for me to hold back!**

**Maria's got a lot of secrets that I don't want to give away just yet, but if you're curious about some of the stuff that has happened, you're more than welcome to have a quick peek at my not-quite-as-well-written stories. There are some connections...**

**Yeah, she's definitely going to learn how the world works very soon. And I'm glad you appreciate how I'm running with this. ;) Your review made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!**

**MoM - Maria's defnitely going to be a friend.**

**And now, onto the chapter!**

**Chapter 11 - Flash Fire!**

**Dream Break**

_Maria shifted her four-legged stance, her six tails flaring out as the Vulpix glared at the large, purple cat in front of her. At least, it looked large to the Fire-Type - everything did when one was this small._

_"What kind of Pokemon are you?" Maria demanded. Her gaze went over to the Electric Mouse standing nearby, but his gaze was locked with the purple-and-black Girafarig that was grinning wickedly down at him. "I definitely haven't seen any cat Pokemon like you before."_

_The purple cat Pokemon let out a purring noise as his tail twitched in annoyance. "I don't have to tell you." His voice was downright annoyed, but there was a smoothness underneath that._

_"Well, you definitely don't look like a native. If anything, I'd say you're friends with Team Skull."_

_The purple and black Girafarig snorted. "Those losers? They don't deserve to be mentioned."_

_"Shut up," the cat Pokemon growled._

_"But Liepard -"_

_"I said, shut up!" The cat Pokemon - now named - barked at the Girafarig in a burst of lost temper._

_Maria's eyes narrowed. "You two...get out."_

_"Why should we?" Liepard's voice was clearly strained as he turned and looked back down at the Vulpix. "You two don't even look like you could beat us. If you lead us to your Guildmasters, then we won't kill you...slowly."_

_Maria could feel her blood run cold while Girafarig cackled._

_"What do you want with the Guildmasters?" Pika asked, looking back and forth between the two purple-themed Pokemon with a suspicious look in his eyes. Maria could see that his black-tipped ears were twitching a lot more than they normally did, meaning that he was trying to learn something about the Pokemon in front of him by electric currents or something like that._

_The Vulpix never really knew what it was that the Pikachu was doing, but every time he used that ability of his, Pika could tell whether the Pokemon was okay or not._

_"Okay" meaning, not still affected by Darkrai's dark deeds._

_"We simply wanted to meet the so-called heroes," Girafarig cackled. "And challenge them to a fight."_

_Maria frowned. That laugh made her think of someone with the capabilities of making people laugh to death, but she wasn't able to think of anything that could give her a name to someone who would do something like that...other than some sort of joker._

_"I doubt you'd be able to beat them," Pika stated boldly._

_Maria hummed in agreement; they had fought Pokemon that were bigger, after all - and on levels of power and rarity that placed them in the Legendary category._

_"You're not even worth their time," the Pikachu added._

_Leipard bristled - he didn't seem to be one to hold onto his temper too well - and he dashed forward, mouth opening as he aimed for the Pikachu._

_The Electric-Type was ready, however, as sparks were already flying from his red cheeks. "Thunderbolt!"_

_Electricity coursed from Pika's body and into the cat Pokemon, causing him to fly back as a result of the blast. A loud curse that Maria didn't want to repeat came out of the Pokemon's mouth._

_Girafarig shook his head at the other Pokemon's antics. "You need to be in better control of your emotions in the middle of a fight."_

_"Speak for yourself," Liepard snarled back as he got to his feet. "You've got more personality problems than I have spots."_

_The Girafarig's eyes narrowed. "If we weren't on the same team, I would have killed you by now."_

_"Shut up. Let's get rid of these pests before we go and find the Guildmasters and find out how they managed to find so many Legendaries while we haven't come into contact with any of them."_

_Maria's eyes narrowed even further. "Bad guys?"_

_"Bad guys," Pika confirmed. "I've got the cat."_

_"And I'll take the giraffe."_

_The Pikachu and the Vulpix switched places, glaring up at their new opponents._

_The Girafarig sneered down at Maria, the head on the end of his tail turning around in order to look at their new opponent._

_"Let's see you handle this!" Maria took a step back before dashing forward, her vision shifting to a darker spectrum. "Faint Attack!"_

_"Iron Defense!"_

_Maria rammed into the giraffe Pokemon with enough force to send an Alakazam careening, but the Pokemon didn't even flinch._

_The Vulpix stepped back in confusion. "What? But that attack never misses!"_

_We've trained ourselves to strengthen our bodies. Now, we're living weapons!" Girafarig cackled loudly._

_"Living weapons?" Maria's eyes widened. "What kind of idiots are you guys?!"_

_The Girafarig's tail-head glared up at the front head of the Pokemon as the Vulpix's head continued to speak, ignoring Maria's exclamation._

_"We're going to find the oppressors that will turn the future into darkness and destroy them - and that includes the so-called gods of -!"_

_The tail bit down on the Girafarig's back, causing him to stop and yelp._

_"Shut up." The Girafarig's face shifted as his voice became deeper, more emotionless. "You shouldn't be talking to scum like this."_

_Maria bristled. _Scum?!

_"Let's see you handle this!" Maria took a step back and took in a breath before releasing a blast of fire that took on a star-shaped form. "Fire Blast!"_

_"Iron Defense!"_

_The fire attack went towards the Girafarig, but then streamed off the Normal/Psychic-Type. Some of it even bounced back towards Maria, surrounding her in warmth._

_"Flash Fire!"_

**Dream Break**

Maria opened her eyes slowly, feeling way too comfortable to move because she was so warm...but then her chest spiked with pain, and her eyes widened significantly as the amnesiac woke up fully.

She was lying in Iceberg's bedroom, and _it was on fire._

Maria sat up quickly, putting a hand to her chest and wincing in pain. Blue eyes looked around the room before finally settling on where she was sitting, causing the girl to yelp in alarm before blinking in confused worry.

She was sitting on the remains of the door - which were _clearly_ on fire - but she wasn't being burnt. At all.

"What?" Maria winced when she spoke out her question, and she instinctively gripped her shirt - the exact place were Lucci had rammed his finger into her.

Once again, the last words that had been spoken in the memory rang out in her mind.

_Flash Fire..._

"Flash Fire?" Maria spoke aloud questioningly.

That's when something unexpected happened.

Maria watched with something akin to wonder as the fire around her started to slip into her body, without leaving anything behind except for a strange sense of warmth and the partially burnt wood below her. It wasn't like anything Maria had seen before...

_No, that I can_ _remember_, Maria mentally corrected. She sat there for a moment, looking at the fire as it disappeared, then wondered, _Is this...is this an ability of mine? Is that why the fire isn't hurting me?_

That's when Maria noticed that the pain in her chest had lessened. No longer did it feel like Lucci still has his finger in her chest, but now it felt more like a dull throb.

_I wonder...can the fire heal me?_

Cautiously, Maria reached for another gathering of fire and murmured, "Flash Fire." She watched with wide, blue eyes as the tips of the flames instantly were attracted to her fingertips and disappeared into her. The amnesiac could feel a strange warmth moving from her hand down her arm and into her chest, where the dull throb lessened again into practically nothing.

A grin crossed the girl's face, and she quickly got to her feet and started to look around at the room at the other flames, planning on an energy boost of sorts...that is, until, she caught sight of who else was in the room.

"Paulie! Iceberg!" Maria yelped as soon as she caught sight of the two men tied back to back in the middle of the burning room.

Nearby, a small white mouse suddenly cried out, fear clearly in its small voice. Maria turned to look at the rodent, then froze when she saw that there was a sword with a familiar hilt lying on the ground.

"This...this is one of Zoro's swords!" Maria realized, moving over and picking up the weapon. It felt strange to hold it in her left hand, like it wasn't supposed to be there...

A pile of rubble shifted suddenly, making Maria turn her head and causing the mouse to stop squeaking. A large piece of the wall - which was actually made of stone and not plaster, surprising the amnesiac - shifted and fell over. The figure that had been behind the rock started to unsteadily get to their feet.

"Chopper?" Maria asked nervously upon seeing the antlers and the pink top hat on the reindeer's head.

"Maria!" Chopper looked surprised upon seeing that Maria was standing on her feet. "How can you be moving after what Lucci did?!"

"It's because of an ability I've just rediscovered! It lets me actually absorb fire. Watch." Maria reached out for the flames that were flickering around Chopper, then stated, "Flash Fire."

Instantly, the fire disappeared from the space in front of the reindeer, and Maria could feel the warmth moving through her body seconds before gaining an energy boost. "I healed myself that way when I woke up."

"That's awesome!" Chopper exclaimed, stars taking the place of his eyes for a moment. They quickly returned to normal, however. "No, now's not the time for me admiring your required skills. We have to get Iceberg and Paulie out of here!"

"And find the others," Maria agreed, holding up Zoro's sword.

"Yeah. Help me get them onto my back so that we can get out of here. The air is stifling..."

Maria nodded slightly. While the temperature itself wasn't affecting her at all - in fact, it just felt comfortably warm - the fact that the fire was eating up all the oxygen in the room and producing unbreathable smoke was starting to make the amnesiac feel like she needed to cough.

Putting down the sword, Maria ran over and grabbed Paulie - _man, what do shipwrights eat? Rocks?_ - and shifted him onto Chopper's back before doing the same with Iceberg. Both men groaned, but they didn't seem to be fully conscious enough to tell what was going on. When they were both on Chopper's back, the blue-eyed amnesiac grabbed Zoro's sword again and reached out a hand for the white mouse to climb onto her orange jacket sleeve, which he immediately did.

"Come on!" Chopper started galloping forward the window and breaking through with his antlers before jumping out into the considerably cooler night air. Maria quickly ran after him, leaping without a second thought.

As soon as she got out into the cold night air, the wind started pulling at Maria. She instinctively reached up and grabbed her backwards red and orange baseball cap in order to keep it from flying off as she careened towards the ground.

The amnesiac didn't worry about losing her footing or injuring herself as she fell three stories and landed on the grass in a crouch, the shock traveling up Maria's form but not making her fall flat on her rear. It felt like she was running on adrenaline...maybe as an after-effect of absorbing the fire?

"Iceberg! Paulie!"

That's when Maria noticed that they were completely surrounded by shipwrights - some of them holding onto hoses that were pointed at fires that were all over the building.

"Nami..."

Maria looked over at Chopper, then followed the reindeer's gaze. Her eyes widened seconds later when she saw the the orange-haired navigator of the Straw Hats lying unconscious on the ground.

"I...I have to treat her..." Chopper started stumbling forward, but then he collapsed onto the ground, Iceberg and Paulie falling off his back.

"Chopper!" Maria exclaimed, moving over to the unconscious reindeer. She dropped Zoro's sword - glad to have her hand off it - and started to try and get Chopper to his feet. "Hey, are you all right?"

The mouse that the amnesiac had picked up seemed to have the same idea, because he climbed off Maria and quickly moved over to the blue-haired man, squeaking out of concern for the man who he clearly thought was a friend.

"Hurry - we need first aid!" one of the shipwrights suddenly called out. "They're burned all over!"

The shipwrights quickly ran past Maria and Chopper and started straight for the two unconscious men.

"Hey, what are we going to do about the reindeer and the girl?" another shipwright asked.

"Help them! They saved their lives!" the first responded.

"Yeah - you're right!"

A hand clapped onto Maria's shoulder, and the teen looked up and locked eyes with one of the shipwrights that was running around.

"You're that amnesiac-kid who's always hanging around Paulie, right?" the man guessed.

"Uh...yeah, that's me." Maria gave him a concerned look. "Please, do what you can to help the others - I don't need any-"

"Nonsense, kid. You were up in that room, too. Come on - let me see if you have any burns."

"Well..." Maria gave a sigh and shrugged. "Okay, but I doubt that you're going to find anything."

"Hey, can someone give me a hand moving the reindeer?" a shipwright called out near Maria. He was standing by Chopper's head; the reindeer hadn't even moved since he had collapsed and Maria had tried to lift him up.

"Here, let me."

Another shipwright came over and grabbed Chopper around his middle, and the two moved him off to the side. Maria and the shipwright who had decided to look her over moved also, in order to stay close to the reindeer - as well as Nami.

"All right..." The shipwright took hold of Maria's wrist and started to roll up her orange jacket sleeve, only to frown. "Hey, wait. You're clothes aren't burnt."

"Hmm?" Maria glanced down at her orange jacket, her red shirt, blue jeans, and white shoes. To her surprise, she found that the shipwright was right - there was no sign that she's been sitting on a pile of burning wood about a minute ago.

"Well, that's kinda...unexpected," Maria commented.

"And from what I can seem it doesn't look like you've been burned anywhere, either," the shipwright added. He gave Maria a strange look. "You don't have any weird abilities, do you?"

"Well, I think that depends on your definition of weird..."

Before the shipwright could ask Maria what she meant, there came the sound of crumbling rock from the Galley-La building. Everyone looked over as shipwrights who had been holding hoses scattered...and the building collapsed.

"Dammit," cursed one of the shipwrights watching the destruction. "Isn't there anything that we can do?"

"I doubt there's anything I could do at this point," Maria murmured quietly to herself. Her gaze went over to the collapsed forms of Iceberg and Paulie. "At least they managed to get out of there."

Just then, it looked like one of the two was starting to shift a little. One of the shipwrights standing around seemed to take notice, as well, and he turned in order to look down. A smile appeared on his face seconds later.

"Hey, everyone! Mr. Iceberg's awake!"

Everyone turned to look in the direction of the blue-haired mayor, and relief spread through the crowd like a wildfire.

"All right! He's safe!"

"I knew he'd make it!"

Loud cheering soon followed, with one man exclaiming, "Go Galley-La!"

"The reindeer saved his life!"

"Are you sure? I thought it belonged to the Straw Hats."

Maria stiffened upon hearing the suspicious voice, then let out a low growl. "Chopper isn't an it! He's a he!" the amnesiac declared loudly. Not that anyone listened to her ranting.

The cheering stopped, and suspicious muttering started to fill the area.

"Hey, look! This woman's from the Straw Hats, too!"

Maria's eyes widened when she saw who everyone was looking at...and who happened to be attempting to getting to her feet. "Nami!"

"So, what now?" questioned one shipwright. "Do you think maybe we should tie her up and question her?"

"I don't know - she's just a girl," responded another. "And she's hurt, too."

"I know, but -"

"If they lay a single finger on either Nami _or_ Chopper with evil intentions," Maria growled, looking down and clenching her fists tightly, "then I'm gonna -"

"Whoa! You shouldn't be moving yet, Mr. Iceberg!"

Maria looked up in surprise upon hearing the exclamation, then saw that Iceberg was standing on his feet in front of Nami, his shoulders rising and falling. Clearly, he was running low on energy, if very single breath caused that much movement in his upper body.

"Sorry, men, but I need a little space right now," Iceberg stated, glancing over at the shipwrights. "That is to say, I want to speak to this woman in private." Iceberg continued to move, and he looked over at Maria. "Maria, is it?"

Maria blinked in confusion for a second, then gave a nod.

"You are going to be in on this, as well."

"Uh...okay." Maria got to her feet, then moved over to Iceberg and Nami, helping the navigator to her feet and allowing her to lean against the amnesiac. The trio then moved over to a more secluded area under the trees.

"Hey, wait!"

Maria paused and looked back as a shipwright ran over, taking off his jacket as he did so.

"Here - she's probably pretty cold in that top," the man said.

Nami slipped away from Maria for a moment, accepting the item of clothing and wrapping it around her. "Thanks."

The shipwright simply gave a nod, then turned and ran back to the others, while Maria and Nami made the rest of the trek over to Iceberg.

Upon arriving under the trees, Maria helped Nami get into a kneeling position on the grass before plopping down to the right of the orange-haired navigator.

"What's up?" Maria asked, cocking her head in curiosity. When she saw the serious look that was on Iceberg's face, a frown flickered across her own - but this frown was made out of worry.

The white mouse - who had managed to sneak into Iceberg's pocket - let out a couple squeaks, looking content to be where he was and without a care in the world. The amnesiac wondered if the cute little rodent understood what was going on.

"Well, first off, I must apologize." Iceberg looked over at Nami. "I falsely accused your entire crew. I'll try to clear that up soon."

Maria looked over at Nami, but the Straw Hat's navigator was clearly concentrating on Iceberg's words.

"But for now, I want to talk about Nico Robin."

Nami leaned forward upon hearing this, and Maria found herself becoming interested. Iceberg knew something about Robin?

"What do you know?" Nami asked.

There was a pause for a moment; Iceberg seemed to be getting his thoughts together.

"When your crew arrived here in Water 7, did she start acting strangely?"

"Yeah...she did." Nami appeared - and sounded - concerned. "She went into town that day and never came back. By the next morning, she was...the prime suspect in you attempted murder. When Sanji and Chopper finally found her...she said that this was good-bye, and that she wouldn't be part of the crew anymore. Of course, none of that made any sense to us, so we broke into your mansion so that we could see Robin one more time so that we could find out the truth." Nami flinched a little and looked down at her knees. "What kind of wish did she have that made her give up all her friends?"

"Wait - _what?"_ Maria looked over at Nami in surprise.

"I think I know the answer, actually."

Maria and Nami looked over at Iceburg with surprise.

"This probably started not long after you lost sight of her for the first time," the mayor of Water 7 continued. "The government had begun its operation the moment she arrived. In other words, there's a good reason why she did what she did. But before I go into the details, I want you to understand that Nico Robin and I have the means to revive an ancient weapon that is capable of destroying the entire world."

Maria felt her blood run cold. _A weapon that could destroy the world...? Why would such a thing even exist?_

"A weapon...?" Nami repeated, equally alarmed.

"That's right." Iceberg took in a breath, then launched into his explanation.

"I learned of Robin's intentions when she was holding me at gunpoint in my bedroom. The members of CP9 were coming there because they had found the fake blueprints that I had planted in my office. I previously thought that Robin was planning on destroying the world by searching for the Poneglyphs and discovering the locations of each of the hidden weapons, meaning that I was intent on doing everything in my power to stop her from destroying he world."

"Poneglyphs?" Maria repeated, confused. "What are those?"

"Ancient runes from a civilization long-since gone," Iceberg explained, taking the question in stride. "No one knows how to translate them...except for those from the island of Ohara, which was destroyed about 20 years ago. Your friend Nico Robin is said to come from there."

"Destroyed? But...why?" Maria's eyebrows knit together. "Why would anyone think that an entire island needs to be destroyed?"

"It's because they were learning to translate the Poneglyphs. The entire world was convinced that they were doing it simply to discover the weapons that could be used to destroy the world. However, Nico Robin told me differently. She said she wanted to discover the history of the century that was hidden from history. That kind of search..." Iceberg paused and closed his eyes. "That kind of search could cause more weapons to be unearthed and may cause the destruction of the world. I made sure to mention that, as well. To walk the path that the Demons of Ohara did..."

"But...Robin doesn't _look_ like a demon..." Maria frowned, thinking back to the black creature with glowing yellow eyes and bug-like antenna on top of its head. "And if she's friends with you guys, that doesn't make her bad either, right?" The amnesiac looked over at Nami with an expectant expression.

Nami looked concerned, as well, but looked like she was more lost in her own thoughts than actually listening to Maria's murmurings.

"Robin mentioned that the government has warped her life," Iceberg commented, bringing the amnesiac's and Nami's attention back to the mayor. "When I asked her why she was working with the government, she said that she had a wish that she would sacrifice anything for. When she arrived here with you, CP9 found her and told her to turn herself in and follow their every order without question, while also pinning my attempted assassination on you and leaving your crew."

"Why would she agree to that?" Nami asked, frowning.

"Apparently, there was something called a Buster Call involved." The expression on Iceberg's face was a grim one.

"Buster..." Something about the word was familiar to Maria, but she wasn't quite sure where she had heard it before.

"Ten Marine battleships and five Vice-Admirals are called to the same location...and attack it. Normally, the Admirals and the Fleet Admiral are allowed to do something like this, but Admiral Aokiji allowed CP9 to have this power."

Nami stiffened when Iceberg mentioned the name of the Admiral, but Maria simply blinked in confusion before frowning.

"Why? Why would he let a group of blood-thirsty, _twisted_ people have the power to make a call like that?" Maria demanded, throwing her right arm out in a gesture of anger.

"I don't know. But for whatever reason, the thought of a Buster Call was what drove Nico Robin to surrender to them. She admitted to me that, in the past, she was able to run and use others as a shield in order to hide from the government. But not in this instance, because she sees the Straw Hat crew as her friends. It seems that she is willing to sacrifice the world for you - all of you."

Maria was absolutely dumbfounded. "Wow..." Her blue eyes moved to look over at Nami, who was shocked, as well. "To think that she would put her life on the line for her friends...you're lucky to know someone like that. To have _bonded_ with someone like that."

Iceberg nodded. "At first, I thought she was lying, and grabbed the pistol she had forcibly removed from my grip. In the end, I couldn't pull the trigger." The blue-haired mayor paused.

"She was willing to sacrifice the lives of everyone in this world - even her own - just so that she could save the six of you." Iceberg put a hand on his head. "As much as I hate to admit it, I have no right to criticize her. If they find the blueprints, it's all my fault."

It was at this point that Nami suddenly fell forward onto the grass.

"Hey! Are you all right?" Iceberg asked, moving forward from his position.

"N-Nami?" Maria asked, worried. _Did she push herself too far?_

Nami let out a weak laugh. "I'm happy, that's all. I was so worried...I didn't want to believe she'd betrayed us..."

Iceberg looked a little confused, while Maria let out a sigh of relief herself. To have had the opposite come true would have been like a pile of bricks coming down on anybody...but to hear that Robin was still a friend...it felt like a great weight had been lifted up.

"I've got to find everyone else and let them know!" Nami quickly scrambled to her feet and ran off, adding, "Thank you, Iceberg!"

"Wait!" Iceberg called after the orange-haired navigator. "What are you going to do now? The Straw Hats have already lost to CP9!"

Maria let out a worried hum when she heard that exclamation. It must have happened after Lucci had slammed his finger into her..._how were the Straw Hats going to get Robin back if they couldn't defeat the agents from the government first?_

Nami stopped running and turned around. "What do you mean, we lost?" The navigator raised a fist. "We haven't even started fighting yet! We wouldn't be here right now if we gave up that easy!" A grin came over her face. "Luffy will get Robin back, you'll see. We just needed motivation, that's all."

Iceberg looked absolutely dumbfounded at this exclamation.

Maria blinked a couple times before shaking her head. _These guys are crazy!_ A grin came over her face. _I like that! You'd have to be crazy in order to be able to do the things that they can do!_

"Now that we know that Robin needs saving, there's no limit to what we can do!" Nami declared. Her grin turned into a determined smirk, and then she turned and ran off. "Chopper! Great news!"

Maria grinned as she watched the navigator run off. "This has got to be the best thing they've heard these past two days!"

"It seems that you're affected by this, as well," Iceberg noted, causing Maria to return her attention to the blue-haired, bandaged man.

"Well, I may have only known them for two days, but I already feel so close to them." Maria hummed with delight at the thought as a smile crossed her face.

"Yes, well...I suggest you be careful."

Maria's smile faded slightly, and she frowned. "What do you mean?"

"That staff you carried with you into my bedroom..."

Maria blinked for a moment, confused until she remembered the red, phoenix-headed staff that had appeared in her hands. "Y-yeah? What about it?"

"Carrying a weapon like that can have deadly consequences for the user if they're found out, according to what I've heard. Merely rumors, you must understand."

"Rumors?" Now Maria was even more confused.

"Yes. You see, people usually do not have powers without eating a Devil Fruit first. I understand that you haven't eaten one, but...try to keep that part of your abilities a secret for as long as possible."

"Why?"

"I believe there may be people looking for those with abilities like yours..." Iceberg's expression darkened. "...and they are _not_ as reliably friendly as the Straw Hats are."

Maria became a little worried at that, and she gave a nervous nod. "O-okay, then. I'll...I'll keep that in mind." She looked back over at Nami and gained a nervous expression when she saw that the navigator was slapping Chopper's face in an attempt to wake up the reindeer. "What do you think I should do, sir? I want to be able to help the Straw Hats, but...I'm not technically a part of their crew, so I shouldn't get involved..."

"It's your choice whether you get involved or not," Iceberg replied. "I'm not about to stop you."

Maria's eyebrows knit together. "Well...I'm not sure. I mean, I feel like I should help them, but..." The amnesiac looked down at her open palms for a moment, wondering what exactly she should do. Help the Straw Hats? Or stay at Galley-La?

As if her body was answering for her, there was a flash of light in Maria's hands, and the phoenix-headed staff reappeared in her grip.

Maria blinked for a moment before a determined look came over her face, shadowing her blue eyes and making it look like her eyes were a darker shade...almost a deep ocean blue.

"Yeah," Maria murmured, nodding to herself. "If I'm going to travel around with these guys in order to get my memories back...I may as well help them get their crew member back in order to repay them for their kindness."

**Things are starting to come together. Maria's definitely having second thoughts about the government now. And what was that bit from Iceberg about Maria's abilities? We'll probably find out sooner or later. At the rate this story is going, probably later. Way later.**

**See you guys next week!**


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